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THE  THEORY  OF  DEVELOPMENT 


RIVINGTONS 

ILnnfion . Waterloo  Fiace 

©ifortl . Magdalen  Street 

GTam&rttiflC  .  . Trinity  Street 

[ All  rights  reserved . ] 


THE 


THEORY  OF  DEVELOPMENT 


A  CRITICISM  OF  DR.  NEWMAN'S  ESSA  Y  ON  THE 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE 


REPRINTED  FROM  ‘THE  CHRISTIAN  REMEMBRANCER,’ 

JANUARY  1847 


BY 


J.  B.  MOZLEY,  D.D. 

LATE  CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH,  AND  REGIUS  PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


Neto  York 

E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY 


MDCCCLXXIX 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


\ 

V 


https://archive.org/details/theoryofdevelopmOOmozl 


AD  VER  TISEMENT. 

The  following  Article  is  reprinted  at  the  call  of 
persons  well  qualified  to  estimate  its  value  as  a 
contribution  to  the  controversy  of  the  present 
day. 

The  references  to  the  work  reviewed  are  neces¬ 
sarily  made  from  the  original  edition ;  but  the 
passages  quoted  do  not  stand  in  the  same  relative 
positions  in  the  edition  of  1878,  in  the  preface 
to  which  the  author  explains  that  “  various  altera¬ 
tions  have  been  made  in  the  arrangement  of  its 
separate  parts,  and  some,  not  indeed  in  its  matter, 
but  in  its  text/5 


SUMMARY  OF  CONTENTS. 


Respective  replies  of  Dr.  Moberly,  Mr.  Allies,  and  Mr.  Palmer,  1  ; 
The  author  selects  the  argumentative  part  of  the  Essay  under  review,  2. 

Lines  of  thought  suggested  by  the  idea  of  Development,  3  ;  That  of 
Growth,  4  ;  That  of  Corruption,  5.  Corruption  acts  by  abuse  as  well  as 
by  extinction,  6  ;  Examples  of  this  abuse,  8  ;  The  gift  of  illustration, 
9  ;  Excesses  of  the  Imaginative  Faculty,  10  ;  Schools  of  Philosophy, 
12  ;  National  characteristics,  13  ;  Christian  sects  exhibit  exaggerated 
forms  of  Development,  13;  The  Jesuits,  14.  Examples  of  the  corruption 
of  exaggeration,  15  ;  Aristotle  ;  Practical  Morality  a  complex  balanced 
thing,  16  ;  In  Morals  we  cannot  develop  mathematically,  18  ;  Sense  in 
which  Christianity  was  to  develop,  19;  Obvious  forms  of  Develop¬ 
ment  in  its  internal  temper,  20  ;  And  in  the  department  of  Doctrine, 
20  ;  Doctrine  of  the  Intermediate  State,  21  ;  Doctrine  of  Purgatory, 
24 ;  Relation  of  the  living  towards  departed  Saints,  26  ;  Prayers  to 
the  Saints,  27  ;  The  honour  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  27 ;  Transub- 
stantiation,  28,  Our  Church’s  charge  against  Rome  is  exaggeration, 
30;  Tendency  of  Protestantism  is  to  decay,  30;  Dr.  Newman’s 
definition  of  Corruption,  31  ;  Analogies  drawn  from  nature,  32  ;  The 
fact  of  exaggerated  Development  admitted,  but  not  recognised  in 
his  argument,  34 ;  The  hiatus  illustrated  from  Bocardo,  39  ;  Dr. 
Newman’s  tests  of  true  Development,  40  ;  The  test  of  logical  sequence, 
41  ;  The  region  of  Logic  a  plain  one  where  a  thorough  agreement 
as  to  premisses  exists,  but  where  it  attempts  discovery  it  loses  this 
command,  41  ;  In  the  first  centuries  each  sect  appealed  to  Logic,  42  ; 
To  make  Logic  infallible,  we  must  have  infallible  Logicians,  43  ;  The 
Church’s  Creed  kept  a  middle  course,  44  ;  Answer  to  the  argument 
that  the  Doctrine  of  Purgatory  is  contained  in  that  of  Repentance, 
45;  And  that  Scripture  represents  the  Day  of  Judgment  as  near,  49  ; 
Answer  to  the  argument  that  Scripture  contemplates  Christians  as 
sinless,  50  ;  The  New  Testament  throws  a  peaceful  character  on  the 
state  of  good  Christian  souls  departed  ;  The  Doctrine  of  Purgatory  a 
contrary  one,  52. 


X 


Summary  of  Contents. 


The  Cultus  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  53  ;  Dr.  Newman’s  argumentative 
position  grounded  on  the  Arian  Controversy,  56  ;  His  use  of  the  Arian 
Hypothesis,  65  ;  His  definition  of  Idolatry,  66  ;  Idol  worshipper  of 
the  Old  Testament,  68;  Idea  of  a  Secondary  Divinity,  73. 

The  Nicene  Council;  St.  Athanasius’s  charge  against  the  Arians, 
74  ;  St.  Ambrose,  St.  Hilary,  St.  Cyril,  Faustinas,  75  ;  Distinction 
drawn  by  the  Arians,  76  ;  Summing  up  of  the  two  views,  77  ; 
Athanasius’s  condemnation  of  the  Arian  position,  80  ;  Dr.  Newman’s 
appeal  to  system,  81  ;  Later  Homan  Doctrines,  82  ;  Ultimate  point  of 
his  argument  the  existence  of  an  infallible  guide ;  Papal  Infallibility 
keystone  of  his  argument,  83. 

The  claim  of  Infallibility  more  invidious  than  the  mere  assertion 
of  the  truth  of  certain  Developments,  83 ;  Where  Revelation  has  left 
a  blank  the  Mind  naturally  forms  conjectures  ;  Bishop  Andrewes  on 
Purgatory,  84  ;  Dr.  Newman’s  argument  for  Papal  Infallibility,  85  ; 
Discussed,  87-95.  The  Argument  of  Analogy,  96  ;  Bishop  Butler 
claimed  as  a  sympathiser  with  the  Doctrine  of  Development,  96  ; 
This  answered  by  Butler’s  argument  against  presumptions  concerning 
Revelation  ;  Extract  given,  99  ;  Reply  to  the  distinction  drawn 
between  the  hypothesis  of  a  Revelation  and  an  existing  Revelation, 
102  ;  Supposed  argument  between  a  Sceptic  and  Bishop  Butler,  106  ; 
Dr.  Newman  questions  the  Argument  from  Analogy  on  the  point 
of  anticipating  a  Revelation,  109;  He  draws  a  distinction  between 
the  facts  of  Revelation  and  its  principles,  112;  Butler’s  argument 
from  our  Ignorance,  113.  Concluding  remarks  on  Dr.  Newman’s  whole 
mode  of  treating  the  Argument  of  Analogy,  114  ;  The  hypothesis  of  a 
standing  Revelation  cannot  afford  to  make  any  large  established  idea 
in  the  earthly  Church  erroneous,  117  ;  A  Perfectionist  view  of  the 
progress  of  Truth  in  the  Christian  world  thus  established,  119  ;  The 
Argument  of  Analogy,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  a  ground  on  which  a 
more  qualified  system  erects  itself,  119.  The  popular  Cultus  of  the 
Virgin,  121.  Answer  to  the  difficulty  how  God  should  permit  holy 
men  to  think  erroneously,  122  ;  According  to  Analogy  an  original 
Creed  is  thrown  into  the  world  of  human  intelligence  and  exposed 
to  the  chance  of  human  discolourment,  the  substantial  Creed  remain¬ 
ing  throughout,  124. 

M.  de  Maistre’s  argument  of  simple  Church  Government,  125.  After 
drawing  out  his  Theory  for  a  standing  Revelation,  Dr.  Newman  joins 
on  the  subordinate  one,  the  simple  Monarchical  Argument,  128  ; 
Answer ;  the  idea  of  Unity  does  not  imply  a  particular  local  centre 
of  Unity,  129;  Line  of  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  argument,  130; 


Summary  of  Contents. 


xi 


Tlie  Eastern  Church  an  answer  to  the  assertion  that  whenever  the 
Pope  has  been  renounced,  decay  and  division  have  been  the  con¬ 
sequence,  133;  The  line  towards  the  Greek  Church,  134;  The  Greek 
Church  has  produced  great  Spiritual  deeds,  136;  The  dogmatic  Creed 
of  the  Eastern  Christian  of  this  day  the  Creed  of  St.  Basil  and  St. 
Chrysostom,  ]  37  ;  At  the  Council  of  Florence  the  Church  of  Rome 
was  willing  to  receive  the  whole  body  of  Eastern  Canonised  Saints, 
139  ;  Eastern  sanctity  presents  some  barbarian  features  to  European 
eyes,  141  ;  The  Historical  Argument  for  the  Papacy  regarded  by  Dr. 
Newman  as  secondary  ;  not  entered  into  here,  142. 

Assertion  that  the  Nicene  Creed  is  a  Development,  143  ;  Different 
senses  of  Development,  144;  Cases  of  explanatory  Development;  Of  an 
arguer  having  to  maintain  a  point  against  a  circle  of  opponents,  145  ; 
Case  of  legal  amplification,  145.  Another  form  of  Development  positive 
increase  of  substance,  as  of  the  seed  into  a  plant,  146  ;  In  growth  it  is 
the  ultimate  formation  which  is  the  substance  of  the  thing  growing,  147; 
All  allow  that  Christian  fundamental  truth  has  been  explained,  147  ; 
Example  of  explanation  from  Aquinas  on  the  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation, 
148.  The  parallel  drawn  between  the  Roman  Doctrinal  Developments 
and  the  Doctrinal  Development  at  Nicsea,  150  ;  The  Vincentian  rule, 
152.  “Christianity  came  into  the  world  an  idea,”  153;  Parallel 
between  the  Dogmatic  Principle  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  and 
Conscience  in  the  individual  mind,  154  ;  Answer  to  the  analogy  drawn 
between  the  Mosaic  and  the  Christian  Dispensation,  155  ;  This  view  of 
Development  has  weight  with  a  certain  order  of  mind,  157. 

A  right  side  and  a  wrong  to  love  of  progress,  157.  Abbot  Joachim’s 
opinion  on  the  unity  of  God  condemned  by  the  Council  of  Lateran ; 
Answer  to  the  argument  derived  from  it,  160.  The  word  Homoousion, 
163  ;  The  Fathers  at  the  Nicene  Council  were  taunted  by  the  Arians 
for  their  appeal  to  the  old  doctrine,  166  ;  The  ante-Nicene  Docu¬ 
ments,  167  ;  Bishop  Bull’s  Answer  to  Petavius’s  doubts  of  their  ortho¬ 
doxy,  168;  Dr.  Newman’s  comments  upon  it,  169;  The  Negative 
ground  of  insufficiency,  173;  On  Discrepancies  of  Language,  174  ;  St. 
Athanasius’s  vindication  of  the  Antiochene  Fathers  in  their  rejection 
of  the  word  Homoousion,  178;  Paul  of  Samosata,  178;  Particular 
phrases  used  in  earlier  times  by  St.  Ignatius,  St.  Justin,  St.  Clement, 
etc.  ;  Answers  to  objections,  181  ;  View  held  by  some  early  Fathers 
of  the  \6yos  evSidSeros  and  Adyos  npocpopLKds ;  Dr.  Newman’s  explana¬ 
tion,  184 ;  Supposed  answer  of  the  early  Fathers  to  modern  inter¬ 
preters  ;  Historical  testimony,  188;  Full  belief  of  the  Nicene  Church 
that  its  belief  had  been  the  doctrine  of  the  ante-Nicene  up  to  the  com- 


Xll 


Summary  of  Contents. 


mencement  of  Christianity,  190  ;  Extract  from  the  Essay,  with  sayings 
of  the  Nicene  Fathers,  192;  Contradiction  sharpens  our  logical  view 
of  truth,  195. 

Summing  up  of  the  argument  that  Nicene  truth  was  not  a  Develop¬ 
ment  in  the  sense  asserted,  196  ;  Extract  from  Dr.  Newman’s 
Roman  Catholic  opponent,  writing  in  Brown  son’s  Quarterly  Review , 
200 ;  Ambiguity  in  his  meaning  of  the  word  Development,  203  ; 
His  distinction  between  explicit  and  implicit  knowledge,  204  ;  In 
multitudes  of  cases  implicit  knowledge  no  knowledge  at  all,  204  ; 
The  result  of  the  argumentative  parallel  between  Nicene  Develop¬ 
ment  and  Roman,  207  ;  Dr.  Newman  gives  the  Roman  Church  an 
hypothesis  which  is  to  account  for  her  difficulties,  210;  Extracts  from 
Dr.  Wiseman  and  Perrone  counter  to  this  hypothesis,  212  ;  Again 
from  Brownson’s  Quarterly,  215  ;  In  comparing  the  two  hypotheses 
put  forward  by  Rome,  a  member  of  the  English  Church  has  the  same 
answer  to  them  both,  218;  What  is  Dr.  Newman’s  theory?  222; 
Browmson’s  Quarterly  on  the  words,  “  Christianity  came  into  the  world 
an  idea,”  223. 


NEWMAN  ON  DEVELOPMENT* 


Before  entering  upon  an  examination  of  this  book  we 
have  to  express  our  thanks,  and  to  own  our  obligations, 
to  the  writers  of  various  replies  to  it,  the  titles  of  which 
we  have  prefixed.  To  the  replies  of  Dr.  Moberly, 

*  I.  An  Essay  on  the  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine.  By  John 
Henry  Newman,  Author  of  Lectures  on  the  Prophetical  Office  of  the 
Church.  London,  1845. 

2.  The  Sayings  of  the  great  Forty  Days  between  the  Resurrection  and 
Ascension,  regarded  as  the  outlines  of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  in  Five  Dis¬ 
courses  ;  with  an  Examination  of  Mr.  Newman’s  Theory  of  Development. 
By  George  Moberly,  D.C.L. ,  Headmaster  of  Winchester  College. 
Second  Edition.  London,  1846. 

3.  The  Doctrine  of  Development  and  Conscience,  considered  in  relation 
to  the  Evidences  of  Christianity ,  and  of  the  Catholic  System.  By  the  Rev. 
William  Palmer,  M.A.,  of  Worcester  College,  Oxford.  London,  1846. 

4.  The  Church  of  England  cleared  from  the  Charge  of  Schism,  upon  the 
Testimonies  of  Councils  and  Fathers  of  the  first  Six  Centuries.  By  Thomas 
William  Allies,  M.A.,  Rector  of  Launton,  Oxon.  London,  1846. 

5.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews ;  being  the  substance  of  Three  Lectures, 
delivered  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Honourable  Society  of  Lincoln’ s  Lnn,  on  the 
Foundation  of  Bishop  Warburton ;  with  a  Preface,  containing  a  Review 
of  Mr.  Newman’ s  Theory  of  Development.  By  Frederick  Denison 
Maurice,  M.A.,  Chaplain  of  Guy’s  Hospital.  London,  1846. 

6.  Remarks  on  certain  Anglican  Theories  of  Unity.  By  Edward 
Healy  Thompson,  M.A.  London,  1846. 

7.  The  Fourfold  Difficulty  of  Anglicanism :  or,  The  Church  of  England 
tested  by  the  Nicene  Creed.  Ln  a  Series  of  Letters.  By  J.  Spencer 
NorthCOTE,  M.A.,  Late  Scholar  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford. 
London,  1846. 

8.  The  Theory  of  Development  Examined,  with  reference  especially  to 
Mr.  Newman’s  Essay,  and  to  the  Rule  of  St.  Vincent  of  Lirins.  By 
W.  J.  Irons,  B.D.,  Vicar  of  Brompton.  London,  1846. 

9.  Mithridates :  or,  Mr.  Newman’ s  Essay  on  Development  its  own 
Confutation.  By  a  Quondam  Disciple.  London,  1846. 

10.  Romanism,  as  represented  by  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Newman,  briefly 
considered.  By  the  Rev.  A.  Irvine,  B.D.,  Vicar  of  St.  Margaret’s, 
Leicester.  London,  1846. 


A 


o 


Theory  of  Development. 


Mr.  Allies,  and  Mr.  Palmer,  we  would  especially  call 
attention.  Dr.  Moberly’s  essay  has  one  fault,  and  that 
is  its  shortness.  His  clear  and  logical  mind  could  easily 
have  controlled  a  much  wider  region  of  theological  and 
historical  research  ;  and  the  intellectual  framework  which 
he  supplies  would  hear  filling-up  with  large  materials 
from  the  book-shelves.  Mr.  Allies’s  solid  and  able 
treatise  we  have  already  discussed.  Mr.  Palmer  writes 
with  the  quiet,  sustained  circumspection,  and  even 
strength,  which  distinguish  his  regular  theological  works. 
He  argues  patiently,  and  in  general  closely.  His  style 
is  clear  and  easy ;  and  if  it  never  carries  the  reader  on  by 
any  overflow  of  impulse,  never,  at  any  rate,  obstructs  or 
entangles  him.  His  extensive  patristic  and  controversial 
reading  gives  him  an  ample  command  of  passages,  which 
he  uses  with  singular  judgment  and  discretion;  not 
overloading  his  argument  with  the  whole  amount  of  the 
material  bearing  upon  it,  but  selecting  what  is  most 
applicable  and  to  the  purpose.  We  would  point  to  the 
chapter  on  the  “  Argumentative  foundation  of  the  Theory 
of  Development,”  as  a  favourable  specimen  of  his  mode 
of  treating  a  question. 

Por  ourselves,  we  must  state  at  the  outset  that  we 
cannot  pretend  to  embrace,  within  that  space  which  a 
review  affords,  the  whole  of  that  large  field  of  matter 
which  Mr.  Newmans  book  presents  to  us.  It  is  necessary 
to  confine  our  scope ;  and,  therefore,  we  shall  select  the 
argumentative  part  of  the  essay,  in  distinction  to  the 
historical,  as  the  subject  of  this  article. 

A  short  acquaintance  with  the  Essay  on  Development 
suggests  to  the  reader  such  a  division  of  the  book  as  we 
mention.  He  sees  some  vividly  drawn  historical  sketches, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  prove  the  identity  of  the  present 
Church  of  Pome,  in  religious  spirit  and  character,  with 


Theory  of  Development. 


'y 

3 


the  Church  of  the  first  centuries.  This  does  not  form  a 
part  of  what  we  may  call  the  strict  logic  of  the  Essay ; 
because  its  truth  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  truth  of 
the  identity,  e.g.  of  the  Greek  Church  also,  in  religious 
spirit  and  character,  with  the  Church  of  the  first  centuries. 
An  ethical  similarity  in  one  Church  does  not  preclude  an 
ethical  similarity  in  another.  And,  therefore,  such  state¬ 
ments,  as  applied  to  the  purpose  of  proving  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  is  the  only  Church  of  Christ  upon  earth, 
do  not  profess  to  be  of  the  nature  of  logical  arguments ; 
though  they  produce  their  particular  effect  upon  the 
mind  as  forcibly  drawn  pictures.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  arguments  professing  to  prove,  from  the 
necessity  of  things,  and  the  absolute  wants  of  the 
Christian  society,  the  full  Roman  developments  and 
claims  logically  and  conclusively.  We  shall  confine 
ourselves,  then,  in  this  article  to  this  latter  part  of  the 
Essay,  and  shall  devote  some  thoughts  to  Mr.  ISTewman’s 
argumentative  proof  of  the  doctrine  of  development  in 
connection  with  the  authoritative  claims  and  the  peculiar 
teaching  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  And  we  shall  not 
scruple,  in  doing  so,  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  assistance 
which  some  of  the  prefixed  publications  afford. 

On  the  first  opening,  then,  of  this  subject,  two  great  lines 
of  thought  encounter  us,  each  of  them  a  true,  natural, 
and  legitimate  line,  and  one  of  them  tending  to  check 
and  balance  the  other.  One  of  these  lines  of  thought 
takes  up  the  idea  of  Development.  We  see  unquestion¬ 
ably  everywhere  a  law  of  development  operating.  It 
meets  us  in  nature  and  art,  in  trade  and  politics,  in  life 
vegetable,  animal,  intellectual.  The  seed  grows  into  the 
plant,  the  child  into  the  man ;  the  worm  into  the  butter¬ 
fly,  the  blossom  into  the  fruit.  Education  develops  the 
individual,  civilisation  the  nation.  The  particular  ideas 


4 


Theory  of  Development. 


we  take  up,  grow.  A  simple  thought,  as  soon  as  the 
mind  has  embraced  it,  ramifies  in  many  directions,  applies 
itself  to  many  different  cases,  sees  reflections  of  itself  in 
nature  and  human  life,  gathers  analogies  around  it,  and 
illustrates  and  is  illustrated  in  turn.  Wealth  and  power 
both  multiply  themselves.  The  first  round  sum  is  the 
great  difficulty  to  the  rising  merchant,  which  once  made, 
a  basis  is  gained,  and  money  accumulates  spontaneously. 
The  nucleus  of  power,  however  small  at  first,  once  formed, 
enlarges,  and  absorbs  material  from  all  quarters.  The 
jurisdiction  of  courts,  boards,  and  committees  grows ; 
aggrandising  cabinets  get  all  the  local  interests  of  a 
country  into  their  hands ;  and  empires,  from  a  union 
of  two  or  three  tribes,  spread  over  half  the  globe.  Our 
languages,  our  philosophies,  our  machinery  and  manufac¬ 
tures,  our  agriculture,  our  architecture,  our  legal  codes, 
our  political  institutions,  our  systems  of  finance,  our  civil 
courts,  our  social  distinctions,  our  rules  of  fashion,  our 
amusements,  our  occupations,  our  whole  worlds,  domestic 
and  public,  are  developments.  We  cannot  walk,  or  sit, 
or  stand,  or  think,  or  speak,  without  developing  ourselves. 
We  go  into  a  room ;  we  address  somebody,  or  we  listen 
to  somebody  addressing  us ;  we  act  in  some  way  or  other 
under  the  situations  in  which  successively  we  are ;  and 
are  brought  out  by  circumstances,  acting  upon  us  in  con¬ 
nection  with  our  own  will,  in  one  direction  or  another. 
This  is  the  development  of  human  character,  which  ad¬ 
vances  as  life  goes  on.  The  whole  constitution  of  the 
world  physical  and  moral  thus  impresses  development  upon 
us,  and  points  natural  expectation  in  that  direction.  We 
find  ourselves  readily  entertaining  the  probability  that 
principles,  sentiments,  fashions,  institutions,  will  expand. 
The  change  from  the  small  to  the  large,  and  from  the 
simple  to  the  manifold,  does  not  surprise  us ;  and  an  image 


Theory  of  Development. 


5 


of  that  kind  of  alteration  in  things  which  is  called  growth, 
and  takes  them  through  different  stages  of  magnitude  and 
strength,  is  domesticated  in  our  minds. 

This  is  one  great  line  of  thought  which  encounters  us, 
on  a  primd  facie  view  of  the  progress  of  any  great  political 
or  religious  institution.  There  is  another  equally  genuine, 
natural,  and  true.  If  the  idea  of  development  has  estab¬ 
lished  itself  as  a  natural  and  familiar  one  in  our  minds, 
the  idea  of  corruption  has  done  the  same.  If  we  see  things 
grow  larger,  we  also  see  things  grow  worse.  History  and 
experience  have  contrived  to  fix  very  deeply  in  us  the 
apprehension  of  perversion,  in  some  shape  or  other,  and, 
in  one  or  other  degree,  accompanying  the  progress  of 
institutions,  nations,  schemes  of  life,  and  schools  of  thought. 
There  is  the  maxim  that  the  stream  is  purer  at  its  source. 
It  is  observed  that  the  intention  with  which  a  movement 
begins  often  insensibly  declines,  or  becomes  alloyed,  in 
the  progress.  We  attribute  a  mixed  set  of  results  to  time, 
and  welcome  its  operations  in  one  aspect,  and  fear  them 
in  another.  With  all  its  functions  of  growth  and  enlarge¬ 
ment,  a  general  suspicion  attaches  to  a  class  of  slow,  gentle, 
insinuating  influences  it  betrays  :  the  notion  of  the  lapse 
of  time  suggests  indefinite  apprehensions,  and  the  mind 
forms  an  instinctive  augury  of  some  change  for  the  worse 
which  it  is  to  bring.  Legislators,  philosophers,  and 
founders  of  institutions  are  haunted  by  the  image  of  a 
progress  destined  for  their  creations,  which  they  never 
designed  for  them ;  and  portend  some  departure  from 
original  principles  which  would  elicit  their  protest,  by 
anticipation,  could  they  foresee  it  accurately  enough. 
That  things  are  better  at  first,  and  then  deteriorate  ;  that 
freshness  and  purity  wear  off ;  that  deflections  arise,  and 
that  the  inclination  from  the  strict  line,  once  made,  widens 
with  insensible  but  fatal  steadiness  ;  in  a  word,  the  ten- 


6 


Theory  of  Development. 


dency  of  things  to  degeneracy  is  one  of  those  observed 
points  which  has  naturalised  itself  in  men’s  minds,  and 
taken  the  position  of  an  axiom.  It  is  one  of  those  large, 
broad,  and  fixed  experiences  which  stand  out  in  strong 
relief  amid  the  mixed  and  shadowy  world  of  minor  and 
less  settled  ones.  It  cannot  be  passed  over,  or  put  aside, 
or  touched  on  and  left,  as  if  it  were  a  mere  casual  difficulty. 
It  is  one  of  those  great  settled  judgments  which  we  bring 
with  us  to  the  consideration  of  human  questions  ;  and  it 
claims  to  be  acknowledged  as  such. 

Moreover,  if  we  go  a  step  farther,  and  fix  upon  one  very 
important  and  prominent  line  which  this  general  idea 
takes,  we  find  that  after  establishing  broadly  and  indefin¬ 
itely  this  tendency  in  moral  and  physical  nature,  it  next 
proceeds  specially  to  remind  us  that  this  tendency  acts  by 
the  perversion  and  abuse,  as  well  as  by  the  positive 
extinction  of  the  good  element  which  it  accompanies. 
There  is  the  corruption  of  exaggeration  and  excess,  as  well 
as  that  of  decay.  We  see  good  tending  to  bad,  without 
wholly  losing  its  original  type  and  character  in  the  pro¬ 
cess.  How  this  takes  place,  we  are  not  at  present  concerned 
to  inquire.  Indeed,  what  the  essential  truth,  the  deep 
internal  metaphysical  reality  in  the  case  is, — what  the 
thing  is  which  really  and  at  bottom  takes  place  when  we 
speak  of  good  thus  changing  into  bad, — is  a  question  which 
perhaps  lies  below  the  reach  of  any  limited  powers  of 
analysis.  We  are  only  concerned  here  with  broad  and 
practical  truth,  as  the  general  sense  of  mankind  has  laid 
it  down  ;  and,  practically  speaking,  we  see  corruption  tak¬ 
ing  place  constantly  by  some  good  principle’s  simple- 
exaggeration  and  excess.  Our  fine  moral  qualities  are 
proverbially  subject  to  this  change.  Courage  becomes  rash¬ 
ness,  and  love  becomes  fondness,  and  liberality  becomes 
profuseness,  and  self-respect  becomes  pride.  In  these 


Theory  of  Development. 


7 


and  such  like  cases  the  original  type  of  the  virtue  remains, 
hut  undergoes  disproportion  and  disfigurement  :  the  ori¬ 
ginal  disposition,  which  was  good,  does  not  evanesce  and 
cease  to  he  ;  hut,  continuing,  is  carried  out  beyond  a 
certain  limit,  and  transgresses  some  just  standard.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  say  that  the  rashness  of  the  soldier, 
whatever  extravagances  or  madnesses  it  might  commit, 
lost  its  type,  and  ceased  to  be  courage.  It  retains  the 
original  element  which  we  admire  in  the  courageous 
character, — that  species  of  indifference  to  self,  and  willing¬ 
ness  to  meet  pain  and  death  ;  but  it  retains  it  in  a  particu¬ 
lar  form,  which  we  term  exaggerated,  and  which  is  offensive 
to  our  moral  taste.  The  rash  man  remains  the  courageous 
man  ;  we  cannot  deny  it :  we  feel  ourselves  compelled  to 
preserve  an  under-current  of  admiration  for  him  on  this 
account ;  but  we  apply  it  to  the  simple  original  element 
itself  of  courage  which  we  see  in  him,  and  not  to  its 
actual  form  and  embodiment,  as  he  exhibits  it.  A  vast 
number  of  characters  exist  in  the  world,  which  we  con¬ 
sider  more  or  less  faulty  ones,  of  which  the  only  account 
we  have  to  give  is,  that  they  carry  some  natural  principles 
of  conduct,  or  some  natural  lines  of  feeling,  too  far.  Men 
are  over-busy,  over- anxious,  hasty,  suspicious,  thin- 
skinned,  rigid,  vehement,  obstinate,  passionate,  yielding. 
In  each  fault  we  see  the  good  element  at  the  bottom, 
which  it  carries  out  unsoundly.  How  completely  does  the 
whole  region  of  enthusiasm,  when  we  look  into  it,  present 
an  essential  similarity,  as  far  as  the  fundamental  quality 
itself  is  concerned !  We  see  a  certain  wide-working 
mysterious  mental  characteristic,  which  we  call  by  this 
name  :  all  the  enthusiasms  which  come  before  us  in  actual 
life  and  history,  are  of  this  stock ;  all  the  enthusiasts  we 
see  have  this  enthusiasm  running  in  their  veins  ;  but,  quite 
independently  of  the  question  of  a  good  or  a  bad  cause,  we 


8 


Theory  of  Development. 


like  one  form  of  enthusiasm  and  dislike  another.  One 
man  is  a  natural  enthusiast,  another  an  unnatural  and 
extravagant  one.  In  these  instances,  indeed,  the  continuity 
of  development  is  even  sometimes  marked  by  the  identity 
of  the  name.  Jealousy  is  a  virtue,  and  jealousy  is  a  fault. 
We  ought  to  he  high-minded  ;  we  ought  not  to  he.  We 
ought,  and  we  ought  not,  to  he  severe  and  stern,  soft  and 
tender.  Such  a  person  is  so  scrupulous,  and  another  per¬ 
son  also  so  scrupulous  :  we  mean  it  favourably  in  one  case, 
unfavourably  in  another.  A  fastidious  taste  is  admired 
and  is  condemned.  We  extol  zeal,  and  stigmatise  the 
zealot.  We  use  the  word  enthusiasm,  in  the  same  breath, 
in  a  good  and  a  had  sense.  The  identity  of  the  word  in 
these  cases,  is  symptomatic  of  some  great  intimacy  in  the 
two  things ;  and  often  where  we  have  not  the  same 
identical  word  bearing  its  cognate  good  and  had  sense,  an 
unfavourable  sense  hovers  around  the  virtuous  term,  a 
favourable  sense  about  the  faulty  one  :  each  is  capable  of 
being  used  in  its  contiguous  good  or  bad  meaning,  and 
viewed  in  the  shade  and  the  sunshine,  which  respectively 
haunt  them.  A  particular  look  or  half -formed  smile  in 
the  speaker,  who  is  describing  a  person  s  character,  throws 
a  dubiousness  over  the  pleasing  epithets  of  courteous, 
polite,  agreeable,  prudent.  Even  j  ustice  is  rigid,  and  virtue 
is  obstinate ;  and  we  call  men  determined,  or  vigorous,  or 
simple,  or  strict,  or  pliant,  or  cautious,  or  sharp,  when  the 
context  has  to  decide  the  favourable  or  unfavourable  sense 
in  which  the  epithets  are  used.  A  whole  class  of  words, 
connected  with  character  and  action,  are  very  neutral  and 
ambiguous,  capable  of  expressing  bad  or  good,  according 
as  they  are  used.  The  look,  the  tone  of  the  speaker, 
must  give  the  bias  which  the  term  itself  wants.  And  in 
exploring  the  region  of  verbal  meanings  and  significances, 
Ave  find  ourselves  wandering  among  unknown  quantities 


Theory  of  Development. 


9 


and  formless  embryos,  which  wait  in  suspense  for  the 
decision  of  time,  and  place,  and  context,  to  give  them 
definite  and  fixed  being.  That  is  to  say,  whereas  one  main 
idea  runs  through  a  whole  series  of  characteristic  epithets, 
it  depends  upon  the  stage  and  the  measure  of  this  idea 
whether  it  presents  itself  to  us  as  right  or  wrong.  Our 
verbal  identities  and  verbal  modifications,  the  defects 
and  the  pliabilities  of  language,  point  to  some  unity  of 
element  in  the  case  of  various  virtues  and  faults,  of  which 
the  former  are  the  just,  the  latter  the  unjust  develop¬ 
ments,  but  in  which  it  is  the  measure  of  development 
which  makes  the  difference. 

In  the  same  way,  the  intellectual  character  of  a  man’s 
mind  is  often  unfavourably  affected  by  the  over-expansion 
of  an  intellectual  gift.  A  talent,  however  noble  and  useful 
in  itself,  requires  reining  in.  Eloquence,  versatility,  rich¬ 
ness  of  thought,  power  of  illustration,  are  mighty  gifts,  and 
great  snares  at  the  same  time.  The  mind  of  the  writer  or 
speaker  is  barren  and  feeble  without  them  ;  and  if  it  has 
them,  we  see  it  carried  away  by  them.  How  does  the  im¬ 
poverished  mind  long  for  the  power  of  illustration ;  the 
author  seems  to  be  able  to  do  nothing  without  it ;  every 
truth  falls  dead,  and  every  thought  comes  out  hard  and 
attenuated  :  but  give  it  him,  and  it  instantly  begins  to  clog 
his  course ;  its  impertinent  fertility  interrupts  his  argu¬ 
ment  ;  it  interferes  where  it  is  not  wanted  ;  it  goes  on 
where  it  ought  to  stop  ;  it  cheats  and  fascinates  his  eye, 
and  leads  him  off  his  road  in  the  pursuit  of  far-fetched 
analogies  and  superfluous  parallelisms  and  juxta-positions. 
Some  intellects,  again,  are  too  accurate,  and  narrow  them¬ 
selves  by  their  own  over-definiteness  ;  they  refuse  to  see 
anything  vaguely,  and  consequently  see  nothing  grandly  ; 
they  leave  the  picturesque  masses  and  groupings  of  a  view, 
and  always  put  their  minds  too  close  to  each  part  to  see 


IO 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  form  and  outline  of  the  whole.  Thus  argumentative 

O 

subtlety  is  a  real  gift,  and  at  the  same  time  a  most  danger¬ 
ous  one.  We  see  it  at  first  dividing  acutely  and  truly, 
cutting  a  clear  course  through  perplexing  statements,  and 
winding  through  a  circuitous  argument  with  self-pos¬ 
sessed  flexibility.  But  how  easily  does  its  fineness  become 
too  fine,  and  its  nicety  minute  and  trivial.  Thus,  men  of 
the  world  are  not  rare  who  would  often  judge  much  better, 
if  they  were  less  shrewd ;  their  shrewdness  carries  them 
away,  and  they  are  always  seeing  deeper  and  further  than 
the  fact  before  them,  and  never  rest  in  an  ordinary  natural 
view  of  a  man’s  character  and  actions. 

It  is  in  particulars,  however,  that  is,  in  insulated  pro¬ 
cesses  of  the  intellect  and  movements  of  the  feelings,  that 
the  truth  perhaps  comes  nearest  home  to  us.  In  such 
cases,  however  fairly  we  may  start,  we  often  feel  ourselves 
under  the  influence  of  some  active  though  hidden  force, 
some  spring  of  motion  in  our  minds,  which  impels  and 
expands  us  with  a  strength  greater  than  that  of  constitu¬ 
tional  nature ;  and  carries  the  internal  movement,  seeming 
all  the  time  simply  to  advance  and  go  farther  and  add 
one  degree  of  force  and  depth  to  another,  by  that  very 
accumulation  and  continuous  increasing  intensity,  to  an 
exaggerative  issue  and  a  plain  corruption.  Thus,  in 
movements  of  the  imagination,  we  observe  the  poet’s 
mind  too  often  starting  with  the  natural,  and  ending  with 
the  morbid.  The  sentiment  which  in  its  first  stage  was 
healthy  and  sound,  becomes,  as  his  fancy  works  more  and 
more  upon  it,  as  he  draws  it  out  and  carries  it  on  and  on, 
sickly  and  artificial.  We  may  be  able  to  fix  on  no  exact 
line  where  poetical  rectitude  ended  and  deterioration 
commenced,  yet  there  is  the  result.  By  fine  imper¬ 
ceptible  steps,  and  a  continuity  which  seemed  actually  to 
forbid  the  developing  operation  a  pause,  simplicity  has 


Theory  of  Development. 


I  T 


become  puerility,  and  sweetness  mawkishness.  While 
the  poet  has  been  fondly  dwelling  upon  his  own  idea,  and 
caressing  it,  and  contemplating  himself  in  it,  he  has 
spoiled  it  by  his  own  weak  idolatry ;  till,  spun  out,  ex¬ 
hausted,  attenuated,  and  frittered  away,  the  mind  of  the 
healthy  reader  rejects  it  in  disgust.  A  like  process  has 
spoiled  real  grandeur  and  sublimity.  How  difficult  does 
the  poet  seem  to  find  it  to  prevent  himself,  in  unfolding 
ideas  of  that  character,  from  becoming  bombastic.  Even 
Shakespeare  does  not  always  succeed.  In  truth,  real  and 
deep  poetry  of  a  certain  class,  and  not  a  weak  and  hollow 
one  only,  has  a  strong  tendency  to  bombast ;  and  the 
bombastic  development  need  not  rise  upon  a  false  basis, 
but  only  exaggerate  upon  a  true  one.  A  poet  expands  a 
grand  idea,  and  is  only  bent  on  expanding  it ;  he  attends  to 
that  too  exclusively ;  he  does  not  check  or  balance  him¬ 
self  by  other  points  of  view.  The  thought  swells,  in  the 
very  act  of  simply  expressing  and  unfolding  itself,  into 
rude  and  gigantic  dimensions,  and  seeks  unsuitable  and 
excessive  height.  And  an  expansion,  going  upon  the 
basis  of  the  original  thought,  and  only  seeming  at  the 
time  its  essential  elevation  and  full  poetical  career,  in 
the  result  spoils  its  subject-matter,  and  does  the  work  of 
an  enemy,  while  it  acts  as  pure  exponent  and  promoter. 
Thus  many  an  emotion  of  heart  can  appeal  confidently  to 
a  line  of  continuity  which  it  has  maintained  from  its  very 
commencement  to  its  very  last  stage  and  extreme  vent ; 
and  yet,  from  a  sound  natural  impulse,  it  has  become  an 
extravagant  and  morbid  one.  “  Be  ye  angry,  and  sin  not/’ 
the  Apostle  says ;  that  is  to  say,  anger  is  a  natural  and 
proper  feeling  at  a  certain  point  in  its  duration.  “  Let 
not  the  sun  go  down  upon  your  wrath,”  he  adds ;  that  is 
to  say,  anger  beyond  that  point  is  wrong.  There  is  no 
change  of  type  or  essence  in  the  feeling  contemplated ;  it 


12 


Theory  of  Development. 


becomes  wrong  by  the  act  of  simply  going  on  beyond  a 
limit  assigned  for  it.  It  is  the  same  with  other  affections. 
The  genuine  moral  affection  of  love  becomes,  before 
persons  are  aware  of  it,  partiality  and  favouritism,  and 
proceeds  to  idolise  an  object.  Yet  it  only  seems  to  itself 
to  follow  in  the  process,  step  by  step,  that  tenderness 
which  is  its  natural  character  and  very  constitution. 
Indeed,  in  the  mind’s  daily  and  hourly  history,  every 
*  feeling  and  thought,  as  it  arises,  seems  to  go  through  a 
like  course,  and  the  process  of  corruption  seems  to  go  on 
in  miniature,  with  respect  to  every  creation  of  taste,  and 
every  stir  of  heart  within  us.  Nature  herself  is  sound ; 
the  thought,  immediately  as  it  arises,  is  true,  the  impulse 
clear ;  just  the  very  first  dawn  of  a  sentiment,  when  the 
mind  is  half  unconscious  of  it,  its  primordia  and  earliest 
infancy  are  pure.  But  the  perfect  healthy  stage  is  an 
evanescent  one ;  it  is  gone  before  it  can  be  caught. 
Follow  the  impression  for  any  time,  and  it  glides  out  of 
our  control ;  it  swells,  and  unfolds  itself  too  freely  and 
boldly,  and  we  are  conscious  it  has  passed  out  of  its 
stage  of  simplicity  into  a  more  or  less  unsound  state. 

The  characters  of  great  systems,  schools  of  philosophy, 
religions,  nations,  instance  the  same  excessive  stamp. 
The  Spartan  character  was  an  exaggeration ;  the  Cynic 
was ;  the  Stoic  was ;  the  fatalist  temper  of  the  Maho¬ 
metan  religionist,  the  fortitude  of  the  American  savage, 
the  self-denial  of  the  Hindoo  saint,  are  exaggerations. 
The  idea  at  the  bottom  of  these  characters  we  admire, 
but  there  is  something  painful  about  them ;  we  shrink 
from  the  boldness  of  the  moral  development,  as  from 
something  out  of  measure,  unnatural,  and  prodigious. 
National  characters  are  exaggerations.  Anglo-Saxon 
stubbornness,  French  vivacity,  Italian  subtlety,  Spanish 
pride,  German  speculativeness,  Irish  warmth,  Scotch 


Theory  of  Development.  13 

shrewdness,  are  excessive  developments  of  good  national 
elements  of  character.  Nations  gradually  alter,  and  show, 
in  the  course  of  a  century  or  two,  that  a  particular 
character  has  grown  upon  them.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
becomes  stiff-necked,  the  Frenchman  revolutionary.  The 
Greek,  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  was  the  Grseculus  of  the 
Augustan  era.  Philosophical  schools  exhibit  the  same 
history ;  they  exaggerate  the  mystical,  or  the  argumen¬ 
tative  character,  whichever  it  may  be,  of  the  original 
philosophy.  The  tempered  mysticism  of  Plato  is 
extravagantly  reflected  in  the  wild  obscurities  of 
Alexandrian  Platonism  ;  and  Aristotelian  logic  became 
disputatious  and  rationalistic  in  the  hands  of  the  sophisti¬ 
cal  schools. 

The  history  of  Christianity  presents  us  with  like 
phenomena ;  and  particular  schools  or  sects  have  carried 
out  particular  gospel  precepts  immoderately,  and  exhibited 
an  exaggerated  and  deformed  development  of  the  Christian 
rjOos.  The  peculiar  meekness  inculcated  in  the  precepts, 
“  Eesist  not  evil/’  “  Unto  him  that  smiteth  thee  on  the  one 
cheek  offer  also  the  other,  and  him  that  taketh  away  thy 
cloak,  forbid  not  to  take  thy  coat  also,”  and  other  similar 
texts,  has  been  carried  out  into  Quietism  and  Quakerism. 
The  temper  of  reserve  has  been  exaggerated  in  the  same 
wTay,  and  developed  into  a  tortuous  and  underhand  spirit. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Christianity  does  very 
significantly  recommend,  and  very  naturally  produce,  a 
temper  of  reserve ;  the  temper  is  a  feature  in  Christian 
morals,  and  other  religions  have  not  paid  such  attention 
to  it.  Christianity  has  done  this  because  it  is  so  essen¬ 
tially  practical  a  religion ;  it  does  not  stand  aloof  from 
the  human  throng,  it  enters  boldly  and  familiarly  into  it, 
and  deals  with  human  nature  as  it  finds  it.  It  therefore 
thinks  much  of  the  quality  of  considerateness,  and  it  tells 


14  Theory  of  Development. 

its  disciples  to  be  watchful  and  gentle  to  people’s  feelings 
and  prejudices.  Violence  defeats  itself.  This  quality, 
on  the  other  hand,  sees  difficulties,  looks  beforehand,  and 
suits  itself  to  the  state  of  mind  it  addresses  ;  mixes 
tenderness  and  prudence,  forbearance  and  penetration, 
love  and  good  sense.  Such  texts  as  “  Be  ye  wise  as 
serpents,  and  harmless  as  doves,”  “  Give  not  that  which 
is  holy  unto  the  dogs,  neither  cast  ye  your  pearls  before 
swine,”  and  such  declarations  as  that  of  St.  Paul’s,  that 
he  “  became  all  things  to  all  men,”  evidently  suggest  some 
modification  or  other  of  the  politic  type  of  mind,  as  one 
intended  to  exist  under  the  Gospel.  Now,  whether  or  not 
the  Jesuitical  order  as  a  whole  has  exaggerated  this  type, 
at  any  rate  it  seems  certain  that  some  members  of  it  have, 
and  that  many  who  have  not  been  Jesuits  also  have. 
Indeed,  it  is  one  easily  exaggerated  :  there  is  an  indefinite¬ 
ness  as  to  what  it  allows  and  what  it  does  not ;  as  to 
where  its  prudential  character  ends,  and  deceitful  begins. 
A  sort  of  cowardice  soon  couples  itself  with  it,  and  a  man 
uses  reserve  as  a  shelter  and  fortress  to  himself,  instead 
of  a  charity  to  another.  In  time,  the  principle  of 
accommodation  becomes  relished  for  its  own  sake.  The 
machinery  of  management  pleases.  The  undermining 
position  flatters  the  mind  with  sensations  of  its  own 
depth  and  power.  The  relation  of  watcher  and  schemer 
with  respect  to  others,  which  makes  one  side  the  material 
upon  which  the  other  exercises  his  skill  and  tact,  feeds  a 
subtle  vanity,  and  stimulates  an  earthly  activity.  A  keen 
professional  spirit  grows  upon  the  mind,  like  the  love  of 
some  trade  or  occupation.  The  fineness  of  natural 
conscience  with  respect  to  sincerity  is  dullened, — a  techni¬ 
cal  standard  obtains ;  and,  step  by  step,  without  trans¬ 
gressing  any  absolute  law  at  any  one  point,  the  principle 
of  Christian  reserve  has  developed  into  that  policy  which 


Theory  of  Development. 


15 


is  often  conventionally  called  Jesuitism  ;  though  we  want 
to  lay  our  stress  not  on  the  name,  but  on  the  thing. 
That  which  people  mean  to  censure  under  the  name,  is 
the  abuse  of  a  good  and  a  specially  Christian  principle. 
There  is  a  legitimate  principle  of  economy,  which  simple 
forbearance  and  charity  in  dealing  with  other  minds 
involve ;  and  this  has  received  an  inordinate  and  exces¬ 
sive  development. 

A  general  view  of  things  thus  impresses  strongly  a 
form  of  corruption  upon  us,  which  is  the  corruption  of 
exaggeration,  and  not  that  of  failure ;  the  perversion,  and 
not  the  destruction,  of  an  original  type  :  we  see  in  a 
multitude  of  cases  principles,  in  themselves  true,  over¬ 
acted,  good  feelings  over-wrought,  fine  perceptions  over¬ 
cultivated.  Our  moral  nature  tends  to  indignation, 
enthusiasm,  tenderness,  determination,  self-respect  in 
excess.  The  intellect  may  be  too  rich,  too  accurate,  too 
subtle,  too  shrewd ;  and  poetry  can  develop  into  bombast 
and  sentimentalism,  philosophy  into  sophistry,  national 
character  into  caricature.  Whether  any  particular  illus¬ 
trations  are  right  or  wrong,  and  apply  to  the  case  or  not, 
that  form  of  corruption  which  consists  in  excess,  and  not 
failure,  is  too  clearly  marked,  too  broad,  too  common  and 
palpable  a  one,  to  admit  of  any  doubt.  We  may  add, 
that  though  the  word  corruption  suggests  etymologically 
the  latter  rather  than  the  former,  and  puts  the  image  of 
decay  primarily  before  us,  yet  the  strong  habitual  observa¬ 
tion  amongst  us  of  corruption  exaggerative,  has  turned  it 
the  other  way ;  and  in  calling  the  excess  of  a  virtue, 
rather  than  its  failure,  its  corruption,  made  the  word 
suggestive  of  excess.  This  form  of  corruption  Aristotle 
saw  as  a  fact,  and  gave  it  a  place  in  his  philosophy.  He 
said  a  thing  can  become  worse  by  excess  ;  the  good  prin¬ 
ciple  need  not  cease,  and  an  evil  oue  be  substituted  in  its 


1 6  Theory  of  Development. 

placef in  order  to  have  deterioration;  it  may  continue  to 
exist,  but  exist  inordinately.  The  measure,  as  well  as 
the  substance,  is  part  of  the  virtue.  Est  modus  in  rebus  : 
there  is  symmetry  and  form  in  moral  nature ;  there  is  a 
standard  of  growth  in  the  constitution  of  things.  It  is 
not  enough  that  the  good  principle  simply  exists ;  it 
should  exist  in  a  certain  way.  True,  indeed,  good  is  good, 
and  evil  evil,  and  there  is  nothing  between ;  but  this 
settles  nothing  as  to  the  mode  by  which  good  and  by 
which  evil  become  such.  In  forming  a  correct  image  in 
our  minds  of  what  makes  good  and  makes  evil,  we  must 
not  only  have  the  image  of  two  separate  principles,  as  it 
were  two  points  or  atoms,  and  say  that  one  of  these  is 
good  and  the  other  is  evil.  Practical  morality  is  a  more 
complex  and  balanced  thing ;  and  the  principle  of  form, 
as  well  as  that  of  substance,  should  enter  into  the  idea  of 
good.  If  good  refuses  to  exist  according  to  a  certain 
standard  or  measure,  it  gets  wrong  by  excess,  just  as,  if  it 
declines,  it  gets  wrong  by  ceasing  altogether.  Without 
diving,  however,  into  the  metaphysical  part  of  the  subject, 
or  attempting  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  the  relation  of  good 
and  evil,  it  is  enough  to  appeal  to  a  plain  and  practical 
truth.  All  phenomena,  natural  or  moral,  are  more  or 
less  inexplicable  when  we  come  to  analyse  them ;  but 
the  difficulty  of  the  analysis  does  not  interfere  at  all  with 
the  certainty  of  the  fact.  And  the  matter  of  common 
sense,  the  practical  phenomenon,  is  plain,  that  things 
become  worse  upon  their  original  basis,  and  that  good 
becomes  evil  by  exaggeration. 

Thus  early,  indeed,  and  in  the  moral  department,  before 
coming  to  theology  at  all,  we  find  ourselves  in  collision 
with  a  certain  idea  of  development.  There  is  a  philosophy 
of  development,  which  regards  it  in  its  progressive  aspect 
exclusively,  and  puts  its  form  and  measure  in  the  back- 


Theory  of  Development. 


17 


ground.  Such  a  view  has  the  advantage  of  simplicity ;  it 
makes  the  question  of  truth  a  question  of  quantity,  and 
the  biggest  development,  whatever  it  be,  the  truest. 
Development,  simply  as  such, — as  so  much  continuous 
swelling  and  pushing  forward  of  an  original  idea, — is  the 
more  perfect  the  farther  it  goes,  up  to  the  very  extremest 
conceptions  of  size  and  extension  which  the  mind  can 
entertain.  A  pure,  progressive,  illimitable,  mathematical 
movement  hangs  argumentatively  in  terror em  over  us, 
with  the  assertion  of  a  logical  necessity  and  impossibility 
of  stopping  short  of  consequences.  But  such  a  rationale 
of  development  is  inapplicable  to  the  subject-matter  to 
which  it  is  applied.  In  morals  we  cannot  develop  mathe¬ 
matically,  because  we  have  not  a  basis  which  will  bear  it. 
In  mathematics  we  have  fixed  and  defined  principles  to 
start  from, — we  have  them  by  hypothesis  ;  we  know,  there¬ 
fore,  exactly  what  we  are  about,  and  have  a  pledge,  in  a 
known  and  ascertained  premiss,  for  the  truth  of  all  the 
results.  But  in  morals  we  have  no  ascertained  premiss 
to  begin  with.  We  do  not  know  what  we  have  ;  we  have 
to  wait  for  a  development  before  we  do  know.  Here  is 
the  point.  In  mathematics  the  principle  is  known  prior 
to  its  results.  In  morals  it  is  only  known  in  its  results. 
Take  the  principle  of  love  and  fear  in  religion  and  morals. 
We  call  them  two  principles  conventionally,  and  imagine 
them,  for  convenience  sake,  existing  as  two  definite 
entities,  prior  to  any  concrete  manifestations  or  develop¬ 
ments  of  them.  But  the  truth  is,  we  do  not  know  them 
or  their  character,  except  in  their  manifestations  and 
developments.  We  see  moral  principles,  as  we  see  the 
laws  of  material  motion,  not  prior  to,  but  in  their  external 
and  cognisable  action ;  and  the  dramatic  or  practical  de¬ 
velopments  of  love  and  fear  alone  declare  what  love  and 
fear  are.  The  developments  thus,  in  morals,  explaining 


1 8 


Theory  of  Development . 


the  principle,  to  argue  from  the  principle  to  the  develop¬ 
ments  is  to  argue  in  a  circle.  And,  therefore,  to  any 
mathematical  veto  forbidding  us  to  form  a  distinct  judg¬ 
ment  of  any  moral  development,  on  the  ground  that  we 
have  already  committed  ourselves  to  the  principle  from 
which  it  proceeds,  the  answer  is  obvious  : — we  could  not 
have  committed  ourselves  in  such  a  sense  to  the  principle, 
because  we  never  committed  ourselves  to  this  develop¬ 
ment.  In  other  words,  in  the  department  of  morals,  as 
distinguished  from  that  of  mathematics,  we  go  by  the 
eye ;  and  the  moral  taste  necessarily  forms  its  judgment 
of  a  moral  exhibition,  as  a  present  object  before  it.  The 
general  principle  being  allowed,  the  phenomenon  has  still 
to  be  judged  of :  the  mode  of  development  is  a  separate 
question  when  development  arrives ;  and  the  undefined 
moral  substance  has  to  receive  its  form  and  measure 
before  it  becomes  that  final  reality  about  which  we  judge. 

To  go  back  to  the  point  at  which  we  started. 

We  have,  then,  two  great  lines  of  thought  encountering 
us  in  limine ,  in  entering  upon  the  question  which  the 
Essay  before  us  raises.  We  have  the  natural  idea  of 
development,  and  we  have  the  natural  idea  of  a  tendency 
to  exaggeration  and  abuse  in  development.  In  giving  an 
account  of  the  progress  of  any  great  institution,  political 
or  religious,  either  of  these  ideas  is  admissible ;  and  one 
party  may  put  forward  the  rationale  of  development,  and 
another  the  rationale  of  abuse.  One  may  fasten  singly 
on  the  former  idea,  may  illustrate  it  copiously,  and  by 
filling  the  imagination  with  the  idea  of  development 
exclusively,  preclude  all  other  aspects  in  which  any  given 
progressive  changes  can  be  viewed  ;  another  may  carry  to 
the  consideration  of  such  changes  the  idea  of  develop¬ 
ment,  and  the  idea  of  abuse  too. 

Under  the  contending  claims,  then,  of  these  two  ideas, 


Theory  of  Development . 


19 


the  history  of  Christianity  comes  before  us ;  and  the 
question  is  how  to  decide  between  the  pretensions  of  the 
two.  The  principle  of  development  is  of  course  admitted, 
to  begin  with,  in  this  case.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Christianity  was  intended  to  develop  itself.  It  was 
intended  to  do  so  on  the  same  general  law  on  which  great 
principles  and  institutions,  we  may  say  all  things,  great 
or  small,  do.  If  a  man  cannot  enter  a  room  full  of  • 
fellow- creatures  without  developing  himself,  still  less 
could  Christianity  enter  into  this  world  without  developing 
itself.  It  had  precepts,  it  had  doctrines ;  those  precepts 
must  be  practised,  those  doctrines  must  be  entertained  in 
the  mind.  Human  life  and  human  thought  were  the 
receptacles  of  the  gospel.  People  who  became  Christians 
would  have  to  act  upon,  and  to  think  of,  what  Christianity 
imparted  to  them.  The  peculiar  Christian  temper,  in 
the  first  place,  would  be  brought  out  more  prominently, 
as  different  relations,  religious  or  secular,  social  or  civil, 
had  to  be  sustained  and  responded  to.  While  the 
apostles  lived,  Christians  showed  their  obedience  to 
apostles  ;  when  the  apostolic  office  descended  to  bishops, 
Christians  showed  their  obedience  to  bishops,  and  the 
hierarchical  spirit  of  Christianity  appeared  in  more 
regular  form.  Christians  found  themselves,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  under  civil  governments ;  and  they  had  to  act  as 
Christians  in  this  relation.  They  had  a  general  principle 
inculcating  meekness ;  that  meekness  became  in  this 
relation  the  temper  of  non-resistance.  The  charity 
enjoined  in  the  Gospel  developed  itself,  under  the  parti¬ 
cular  circumstances  of  the  Church  after  the  day  of  Pente¬ 
cost,  in  community  of  goods.  It  afterwards  developed 
itself  in  Sunday  collections  for  the  poor,  and  all  the 
charitable  rules  and  institutions  of  the  early  Church. 
Thus  there  could  not  be  martyrs  before  there  were  perse- 


20 


Theory  of  Development. 


cutions ;  the  latter  developed  the  martyr  spirit  in  the 
Christian  mind  : — that  generosity  which  made  the  indi¬ 
vidual  ready  wholly  to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  Truth  and 
for  the  brethren.  Heresies  developed  the  dogmatic 
temper  of  Christianity ;  it  could  not  show  its  fidelity  to 
the  Truth  so  forcibly  before  as  it  could  after  the  Truth  was 
assailed.  The  self-denying  temper  of  Christianity  de¬ 
veloped  itself  in  stated  fasts,  voluntary  poverty,  retire¬ 
ment  from  society,  celibacy,  and  monasticism.  It  was 
necessary  that  the  Christian  temper,  when  it  found  itself 
in  the  world,  should  act  in  some  way  or  other ;  it  could 
not  act  without  developing  itself :  action  is  itself  de¬ 
velopment.  The  simple  fact  of  Christianity  being  in  the 
world — being  there  just  as  other  things  are — being  among 
governments,  the  poor,  persecutions,  heretics,  made  a 
Christian  development.  The  question  whether  that 
peculiar  temper  has  always  developed  itself  properly  in 
the  world — one  which  we  incidentally  alluded  to  above — 
is  one  which  we  need  not  pursue. 

Besides  this  internal  temper  of  Christianity,  a  depart¬ 
ment  of  doctrine,  or  rather  a  mixed  department  of  doctrine 
and  feeling,  was  brought  into  existence  by  the  Hew  Dis¬ 
pensation,  which,  when  once  existing,  could  not  but 
expand,  and  lead  to  farther  ideas.  And  though  those 
ideas  might  at  first  be  strictly  apostolical  in  their  origin, 
and  have  the  rank  of  an  unwritten  revelation,  yet  a  time 
would  come  when  inspiration  would  cease,  and  the  unin¬ 
spired  operations  of  human  feeling  and  reason  begin.  We 
will  instance  three  or  four  important  departments  in 
which  original  doctrine  has  received  development  from 
the  thought  and  feeling  of  the  general  Christian  mind  to 
which  it  was  communicated ;  not  disguising,  as  we 
proceed,  our  preference  of  some  to  other  stages  of  that 
development,  though  we  are  only  giving  at  present  its 


Theory  of  Development. 


2  I 


whole  course  as  a  fact.  And  we  shall  take  development 
upon  its  broad  and  practical  ground,  not  confining  our¬ 
selves  to  public  verbal  statements  only,  but  looking  to 
their  actual  interpretation  and  mode  of  reception  in  the 
Church. 

The  doctrine  of  an  intermediate  state,  with  the  relations 
of  Christians  to  the  departed  accompanying  it,  presents,  in 
the  successive  stages  it  has  gone  through,  an  instance  of 
this  development.  The  Gospel  revealed,  with  a  clearness 
with  which  it  had  not  been  before,  the  doctrine  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  The  dead  were,  to  the  Christian 
believer,  real  persons,  living  in  another  state ;  that  he  did 
not  see  them  was  nothing  to  the  purpose — they  existed  : 
the  same  personal  beings  whom  he  had  known  upon 
earth  were  alive  in  some  invisible  portion  of  the  universe. 
But  the  dead  could  not  exist  without  some  relation 
between  him  and  them  ensuing.  The  first  duty  of  a  being 
to  all  other  beings,  is  to  wish  them  well.  The  Christian 
could  not,  on  the  first  principles  of  religion,  help  wishing 
the  dead  well.  If  he  wished  them  well,  he  implicitly 
prayed  for  them  ;  for  the  wish  of  a  religious  mind  is  itself 
a  prayer.  Every  one’s  eternal  lot,  indeed,  is  decided  at 
his  death  ;  and  that  lot  in  the  case  of  all  for  whom  we  can 
pray  is  a  happy  one.  But  we  can  pray  for  a  benefit  which 
is  already  certain,  where  that  certainty  is  only  the  certainty 
of  faith,  and  not  of  sight.  The  certainty  of  faith  as  to  any 
event,  can  never  of  its  own  nature  be  so  certain  as  not  to 
leave  room  for  a  wish  or  prayer  for  it.  We  believe,  but 
do  not  see  ;  we  look  upon  the  dark  ;  there  is  a  veil  before 
us,  and  we  pray  that  something,  which  we  believe  to  take 
place  behind  it,  may  take  place.  We  pray  in  the  baptismal 
service  that  the  water  may  regenerate  the  infant,  though 
we  believe,  in  accordance  with  Catholic  doctrine,  that  it 
certainly  will ;  and  in  the  same  way  the  early  Church 


22  Theory  of  Development. 

prayed  that  the  righteous  dead  might  receive  their  eternal 
reward,  though  it  believed,  for  certain,  that  they  would. 
The  doctrine  of  the  intermediate  state  and  prayers  for  the 
dead  was  thus  a  natural  development  of  the  revelation  of 
the  soul’s  immortality,  specially  made  in  the  Gospel.  The 
dead  existed  now  ;  the  day  of  judgment  was  yet  to  come  ; 
an  intermediate  state  of  existence  therefore  between  death 
and  judgment  there  must  be  :  the  righteous  souls  waited 
for  their  eternal  reward,  the  wicked  for  their  eternal  doom. 
The  primitive  doctrine  of  the  intermediate  state  reflected 
simply  the  original  Christian  truths,  of  the  departed  soul’s 
present  existence  and  future  judgment.  For  the  righteous 
it  was  thus  a  state  of  pure  rest ;  their  earthly  labours 
over,  their  final  bliss  gradually  approaching.  “  Blessed 
are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord,  even  so  saith  the 
Spirit,  for  they  rest  from  their  labours.”  “  Verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  To-day  shalt  thou  he  with  me  in  Paradise.” 
Nature  was  a  type  of  grace  : — “  Man  went  forth  to  his 
work  and  to  his  labour  until  the  evening;”  in  the  evening 
he  rested.  From  the  wdiole  idea  of  life  as  a  scene  of 
labour,  followed  naturally  the  idea  of  death  as  a  state  of 
peace ;  and  the  life  after  was  not  the  continuation,  hut 
correlative,  of  the  life  before.  The  busy  day,  the  still 
night,  the  journey  and  the  rest,  waking  and  sleeping,  life 
and  death,  corresponded  to  each  other  in  the  Divine  dis¬ 
pensation  of  things.  “  Them  that  sleep  in  Jesus,  will  God 
bring  with  him.”  “We  which  are  alive  shall  not  prevent 
them  which  are  asleep.”  The  language  of  the  New 
Testament  ascribes  a  character  of  peace  and  rest  to  the 
state  of  true  believers  after  death ;  the  idea  pervades  it 
remarkably,  and  lays  strong  hold  of  a  reader.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  for  one  careful  and  anxious  about  a  true  belief  in 
this  subject,  not  to  regard  with  awe  that  sentence  which, 
in  its  obvious  meaning,  seems  so  clearly  to  intimate  what 


Theory  of  Development. 


9  "> 


was  in  our  Lord’s  own  mind  on  tliis  subject.  The  Liturgies 
of  the  early  Church  followed  up  this  tone  in  their  prayers 
for  the  righteous  dead.  “  Beturn,  my  soul,  into  thy  rest.” 
— “  I  will  fear  no  evil  because  Thou  art  with  me.” — “  Be 
mindful,  0  Lord  God  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh,  of  such  as 
we  have  remembered,  and  such  as  we  have  not  remem- 
bered,  being  of  right  belief,  from  Abel  the  just  unto  this 
present  day.  Do  Thou  cause  them  to  rest  in  the  land 
of  the  living,  in  Thy  kingdom,  in  the  delight  of  Paradise, 
in  the  bosom  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  our  holy 
fathers.” — “  Bemember,  0  Lord,  Thy  servants  and  hand¬ 
maids,  which  have  gone  before  us  with  the  ensign  of 
faith,  and  sleep  in  the  sleep  of  peace.  To  them,  0  Lord, 
and  to  all  that  are  in  rest  in  Christ,  we  beseech  Thee 
that  Thou  wouldst  grant  a  place  of  refreshing,  light,  and 
peace.” — “Vouchsafe  to  place  in  the  bosom  of  Abraham 
the  souls  of  those  that  be  at  rest.” — “  Place  in  rest  the 
spirits  of  those  which  are  gone  before  us,  in  the  Lord’s 
peace,  and  raise  them  in  the  part  of  the  first  resurrection.” 

So  stood  the  doctrine  of  the  intermediate  state  for  some 
centuries.  It  then  gradually  altered,  till  the  simply 
waiting  expectant  state  at  last  issued  in  a  painful  and 
troubled  one,  and  the  interval  between  earth  and  heaven, 
in  which  the  righteous  had  rested,  was  occupied  with  pain 
and  torture.  A  purgatorial  doctrine  had  existed  from 
the  first  in  the  Church.  It  was  piously  and  naturally 
held  that  the  soul  did  not  enter  heaven  without  some 
purifying  process  at  some  point  of  time  intervening,  to 
take  away  the  vestiges  of  its  earthly  stains.  The  day  of 
judgment  was  fixed  for  this  process  by  some,  others  did 
not  fix  a  time.  This  belief  long  went  on  harmonising 
with  the  primitive  peaceful  idea  of  the  intermediate  state  ; 
and  an  intervening  purification  of  some  kind,  and  at  some 
time,  supposed,  left  the  general  idea  of  the  intermediate 


24 


Theory  of  Development. 


rest  still  whole  and  entire.  By  degrees,  however,  the 
purgatorial  idea  attached  to  this  state  grew  and  expanded  ; 
it  grew,  till  it  at  last  completely  drove  out  the  idea  of 
rest.  The  purgatorial  idea  absorbed  the  whole  state,  and 
placing  at  once  some  highest  saints  in  heaven,  the  obsti¬ 
nately  wicked  in  hell,  made  the  intermediate  state  one  scene 
of  fiery  punishment  for  the  great  body  of  the  faithful ;  the 
souls  of  the  righteous  suffering  in  flames  equal  to  those  of 
hell  in  intensity.  As  to  the  length  of  their  continuance 
in  such  torture,  nothing  was  certified ;  but  nothing  also 
was  certified  as  to  their  deliverance.  That  they  had  gone 
there,  the  believer  upon  earth  knew ;  when  they  would 
come  out,  he  knew  not.  They  would  come  out  when 
they  were  perfected ;  but  when  would  that  be  ?  The 
chantry  was  founded  to  pray  and  offer  masses,  throughout 
all  time,  for  righteous  human  souls,  not  quite  perfected, 
and  suffering  this  pain  so  long  as  they  remained  so.  The 
difference  between  a  process  and  a  place  was  great.  The 
idea  of  a  purifying  process,  even  though  it  be  by  fire, 
suggested  a  vague,  transient,  and  merciful  purification,  and 
did  not  destroy  the  general  image  of  the  intermediate  rest 
of  the  righteous ;  a  purgatorial  place,  on  the  other  hand, 
suggests  the  idea  of  punishment  always  going  on  in  it, 
and  makes  the  idea  of  punishment  the  standing,  lasting, 
prominent  one.  The  primitive  purgatorial  process  having 
now  become  the  fixed  purgatorial  place,  the  purgatory  and 
prison  of  human  souls,  while  that  fixed  place  existed,  the 
departed  soul  could  not,  in  the  idea  of  the  believers  upon 
earth,  be  quite  separated  from  it ;  and  that  place  existed 
till  the  end  of  the  world.  Thus  a  whole  different  im¬ 
pression  from  the  primitive  one,  as  to  the  intermediate 
state,  spread  and  became  dominant.  The  state  of  rest 
was  changed  into  a  temporary  hell.  A  whole  growth  of 
popular  theology  filled  it  with  horrible,  minute,  circum- 


Theory  of  Development. 


25 


stantial  details  and  particulars.  The  image  was  fastened 
on  the  popular  mind,  and  a  complete  legendary  creation 
arose.  The  system  of  indulgences  made  a  constant  appeal 
to  it.  Days,  weeks,  years,  hundreds  of  years  of  purgatory 
were  commuted,  in  the  popular  divinity,  for  penances 
upon  earth  ;  a  second  commutation  turned  those  penances 
into  alms.  So  much  money  bought  off  so  many  years  of 
purgatorial  suffering.  The  expenses  of  wars  were  defrayed, 
the  necessities  of  the  Papal  see  supplied,  churches  built 
and  ornamented,  out  of  the  appeal  to  purgatory.  The 
doctrine  of  purgatory  was  wielded  as  an  established 
ecclesiastical  engine,  became  a  regular  source  of  revenue, 
and  could  be  counted  on.  It  was  eagerly  applied,  and 
warmly  responded  to ;  and  a  whole  mixed  practical  system, 
carrying  with  it  good  and  evil,  much  real  devotion  and 
charity,  with  much  trickery,  profaneness,  and  profligacy, 
completed  the  development. 

Again,  in  the  feelings  and  regards  of  Christians  towards 
saints  and  holy  men,  development  was  natural  and 
necessary.  When  Christians  died,  Christians  began  to 
feel  relations  to  the  dead.  When  saints  departed,  left 
a  name  and  memory  behind  them,  Christians  began  to 
feel  relations  to  saints.  The  new  relation  followed  from 
the  fact,  and  honour  to  the  saints  arose  on  the  same  law 
as  prayers  for  the  dead  did.  It  was  natural  to  reverence 
their  memories,  and  take  care  to  transmit  them.  Any 
memorials  of  them  would  be  tenderly  preserved ;  their 
tombs  would  be  especially  sacred ;  the  martyrdom  would 
be  celebrated  ;  the  saint’s  day  would  be  kept.  The  mind 
would  image  to  itself  their  present  state,  as  resting  from 
their  labours  and  waiting  for  their  crowns.  Thoughts 
upon  thoughts,  in  this  natural  line  of  meditation,  would 
follow.  It  is  unnatural  to  suppose  that  souls  departed 
cannot  pray.  The  prayers  of  saintly  souls  were  interces- 


26 


Theory  of  Development 


sory  in  life  :  why  may  they  not  be  so  afterwards  ?  We 
do  not  know,  indeed,  that  in  their  present  state  they 
remember  ns,  or  think  of  us,  or  know  anything  about  us 
upon  earth ;  but  neither  do  we  know  that  they  do  not. 
All  we  know  is,  that  saints,  once  intimately  connected 
with  us,  are  now  personally  existing  in  some  portion  of 
the  universe  of  God,  having  the  same  essential  disposition 
to  intercede  for  us  that  they  ever  had.  Upon  this  know¬ 
ledge,  when  realised  in  a  certain  strong  way,  a  farther 
step  might  not  unnaturally  follow  in  some  minds ;  and 
supposing  departed  saints  could  intercede  for  them,  the 
wish  might  arise  that  they  should.  The  wish  again  that 
they  should,  might,  in  some  minds,  lead  to  a  kind  of 
apostrophe  or  an  hypothetical  address  to  them  to  do  so, 
only  as  a  mode  of  expressing  that  wish.  “  If  you  hear 
me  and  I  do  not  know  that  you  do  not,  do  what  I  ask 
you;  if  I  can  address  you  I  do.”  If  even  some  very 
ardent  religious  imagination,  annihilating  the  interval 
between  what  may  be  and  what  is,  hardly  felt  the  hypo¬ 
thetical  chain,  and  sent  its  address  straight  and  uncon¬ 
ditional  into  the  spiritual  world,  the  liberty  might  only 
be  a  mode  of  expressing  the  lively  and  realising  impres¬ 
sions  which  such  an  imagination  creates.  A  whole  line 
of  indefinite  feeling  to,  thought  of,  mental  reference  of 
some  kind  to  departed  saints,  extending  from  the  most 
ordinary  popular  honour  to  their  memories  to  the  most 
internal  supposition  of  individual  piety  and  imaginative 
meditation  about  them,  would  thus  not  unnaturally  follow 
from  the  fact  of  their  existence,  and  would  express  itself 
in  ways  open  or  secret,  public  or  private. 

This  is  a  development.  But  development  being 
necessary  to  some  extent,  development  goes  on  farther. 
The  pious  inward  wish  of  the  journeyer  upon  earth  that 
the  saints  might  intercede  for  him ;  the  inward  apo- 


Theory  of  Development. 


strophe  and  address  which  arose  in  individual  minds,  in 
moments  of  deep  and  imaginative  meditation,  when  the 
spiritual  eye  seemed  to  see  the  invisible  world  actually 
open,  and  the  saints  in  their  own  regions  above  taking 
part  with  the  prayers  of  the  Church  upon  earth  ;  all  which 
pious  individual  impulse  might  just  allow  of  or  sanction 
in  its  own  inward  sphere  was  brought  into  regular  public 
usage,  and  made  part  of  the  established  worship  of  the 
Church.  The  indefiniteness  which  inspiration  had  left 
over  the  fact  of  such  intercourse  between  us  and  the  saints 
departed,  that  veil  of  uncertainty  which  unsuited  it  for 
the  Church’s  whole  public  ground  removed, — that  the 
saints  heard  prayers  became  a  simple  popular  fact.  The 
prayer  to  the  saint  was  offered  up  publicly,  side  by  side 
with  the  prayer  to  God.  By  degrees,  the  language  of  the 
prayer  itself  became  bolder.  The  ora  pro  nobis  had  to  be 
understood,  and  the  earthly  supplicant,  as  far  as  language 
went,  asked  of  the  saint  the  same  things  which  he  did  of 
the  Almighty,  in  the  same  form.  Other  and  other  de¬ 
velopments  followed,  which  it  is  unnecessary  here  to  go 
through  ;  the  result  was  the  present  recognised  worship  of 
the  saints  established  over  so  large  a  part  of  Christendom. 

The  honour  of  the  blessed  Virgin  has  been  developed 
still  more  boldly,  largely,  unflinchingly,  with  a  boldness 
and  a  largeness,  indeed,  which  serve  to  throw  all  other 
developments  into  the  background.  But  as  we  shall 
have  to  enter  upon  this  more  at  length  farther  on  in  this 
article,  we  shall  content  ourselves  for  the  present  with  a 
simple  allusion,  and  leave  the  reader  to  recall  to  his  own 
mind  the  general  features  of  it ;  the  style  adopted  in  the 
“  Litanies  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,”  and  such  books  as  St. 
Bonaventure’s  Psalter,  the  Gloires  de  Marie,  and  innumer¬ 
able  others ;  and  the  whole  position  given  to  St.  Mary  in 
the  Boman  Church. 


28 


Theory  of  Development. 


The  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  is  another  bold  de¬ 
velopment  in  another  department.  The  doctrine  of  the 
early  Church  on  the  subject  of  the  Lord’s  Supper  declared 
that  the  bread  and  wine  were  changed  into  the  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ.  Nevertheless,  it  regarded  the  bread  and 
wine  as  continuing  to  be  bread  and  wine,  the  same  in  all 
material  respects  as  what  they  were  before.  Bread  and 
wine  were  material  substances  before  their  conversion ; 
they  were  material  substances  after.  Looking  upon  con¬ 
secrated  and  looking  upon  unconsecrated  bread  and  wine, 
it  regarded  the  former  as  being  all  that  the  latter  was, 
however  much  more  it  might  be ;  there  was  no  idea  of 
matter  which  the  human  mind  could  entertain,  which  it 
did  not  entertain  of  the  material  bread  and  wine  in  the 
Eucharist.  How  the  material  substance,  continuing  such, 
was  at  the  same  time  changed  into  a  spiritual  one,  it  did 
not  profess  to  say  ;  it  asserted  the  truth,  and  maintaining 
a  thoroughly  natural  view  as  to  the  material  bread  and 
wine,  such  a  view  in  all  respects  as  any  ordinary  human 
intellect  would  take,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  truth  that 
they  were  become  our  Lord’s  body  and  blood,  on  the  other, 
left  the  two  truths  to  stand  together.  A  simple,  absolute, 
mysterious  idea  of  a  change ;  not  analysed  or  pushed  out, 
but  stopping  at  its  first  conception ;  practically  intel¬ 
ligible,  intellectually  unintelligible,  combined  both.  Our 
ideas  on  mysterious  subjects  are  necessarily  superficial; 
they  are  intellectually  paper  ideas,  they  will  not  stand 
examination;  they  vanish  into  darkness  if  we  try  to 
analyse  them.  A  child,  on  reading  in  fairy  tales  about 
magical  conversions  and  metamorphoses,  has  most  simple 
definite  ideas  instantly  of  things,  of  which  the  reality  is 
purely  unintelligible.  His  ideas  are  paper  ones  ;  a  philo¬ 
sopher  may  tell  him  that  he  cannot  have  them  really, 
because  they  issue  when  pursued  in  something  self-con- 


Theory  of  Development. 


29 


tradictory  and  absurd;  that  he  is  mistaken,  and  only 
thinks  he  has  them ;  but  the  child  has  them  such  as  they 
are,  and  they  are  powerful  ones,  and  mean  something  real 
at  the  bottom.  Our  ideas,  in  the  region  of  religious 
mystery,  have  this  childish  character ;  the  early  Church 
had  such.  It  held  a  simple,  superficial,  childlike  idea  of 
an  absolute  conversion  of  the  bread  and  wine  into  the 
body  and  blood  ;  and  with  this  idea,  as  with  an  hierogly¬ 
phic  emblem  of  some  mysterious  and  awful  reality,  it 
stopped  short.  But  the  time  came  when  the  idea  of  con¬ 
version  was  analysed  and  pushed ;  it  was  inferred  that  if 
the  bread  and  wine  were  changed  into  the  body  and  blood, 
they  must  cease  to  be  the  substances  of  bread  and  wine ; 
and  comparing  consecrated  with  other  bread,  the  Bom  an 
Church  pronounced  this  difference  between  them, — that 
whereas  all  other  pieces  of  bread  in  the  world  were  mate¬ 
rial  substances,  this  particular  bread  was  not.  The  bread 
upon  the  altar  was  not  a  material  thing,  it  only  had  the 
appearance  and  not  the  reality  of  it.  We  look  on  matter 
as  a  substance.  We  take  up  a  piece  of  wood,  or  piece  of 
stone  :  the  wood  is  grainy,  fibrous,  igneous,  and  has  all 
ligneous  qualities ;  the  stone  is  gritty  and  frangible,  and 
has  all  lapideous  qualities  :  but  no  assemblage  of  ligneous 
or  lapideous  qualities  is  to  us  the  wood  or  the  stone ;  we 
regard  the  latter  not  as  those  qualities,  but  as  the  sub¬ 
stances  which  have  those  qualities,  the  qualities  essentially 
implying  to  our  minds  the  substance  which  has  them  : 
and  the  idea  of  wood  or  stone  is  utterly  void  and  hollow 
while  the  substance  is  withdrawn,  and  is  satisfied  only 
when  that  comes  in.  Thus  bread  means  substantial  bread, 
and  wine  substantial  wine,  and  they  are  not  in  idea  bread 
and  wine  unless  they  are  this.  And  this  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation,  unsubstantiating  the  bread  and  wine 
upon  the  altar  as  it  does,  denies  the  bread  and  wine  upon 


30 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  altar  to  be.  The  doctrine  of  their  conversion  has  been 
pushed  out  into  a  denial  of  their  continued  existence,  and 
the  idea  of  change  has  gained  a  forced  intensity  at  the 
expense  of  ordinary  truth  and  reasonableness. 

Taking  these,  then,  as  samples  of  a  general  develop¬ 
ment  which  has  gone  on  in  the  Christian  Church,  here  is 
a  course  of  development  before  us,  and  the  question  is,  Is 
all  of  it  right,  or  is  only  some  of  it  right  ?  Has  develop¬ 
ment  simply  brought  out  truth,  or  has  it  exceeded  a  limit, 
and  become,  beyond  that  limit,  erroneous  ?  One  general 
view  taken  of  this  course  of  development  holds  it  to  have 
exceeded.  Of  the  later  and  more  extreme  developments, 
what  is  ordinarily  asserted  by  writers  of  our  Church  is, 
that  they  are  exaggerations ;  that  they  push  certain  feel¬ 
ings  or  ideas  to  excess,  and  corrupt  them  by  doing  so ; 
that  they  go  beyond  the  authorised  boundary,  and  overlay 
the  truth.  The  general  form  of  charge  against  Home  is 
this,  as  distinguished  from  the  charge  of  having  extin¬ 
guished  truth :  it  points  to  the  faults  of  an  adding,  not  a 
diminishing  system ;  to  error  in  the  line  of  growth  and 
not  that  of  decay.  The  tendency  of  Protestantism  is  to 
decay  :  it  diminishes,  dilutes,  speculates  away  Christian 
truth  :  it  dislikes  mystery,  distrusts  awe  ;  and  therefore 
the  Christian  religion,  as  an  essentially  mysterious  and 
essentially  devotional  one,  would  gradually  lose  its  funda¬ 
mental  characteristics  and  original  type  under  the  sway 
of  unchecked  Protestantism.  Upon  the  Roman  system, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  special  charge  made  is,  that  in 
various  doctrines,  keeping  the  original  type,  it  has  intro¬ 
duced  an  exaggerative  corruption  of  it.  The  care  for  the 
dead,  the  veneration  of  saints,  the  peculiar  reverence  to 
the  Mother  of  God,  the  acknowledgment  of  the  change  in 
the  Eucharist,  the  sense  of  punishment  due  to  sin,  are  all 
Christian  feeliugs  and  doctrines,  and  they  all  exist  in  the 


Theory  of  Development.  3 1 

Roman  system ;  but  they  are  asserted  to  exist  in  an  im¬ 
moderate  and  disproportionate  way.  The  system  which 
intensifies  the  spiritual  by  denying  the  material  substance 
in  the  Eucharist ;  which  gives  the  Mother  of  our  Lord, 
because  great  honour  is  due  to  her,  the  place  which  it 
does  give  her ;  which  makes,  because  it  was  natural  to 
imagine  some  purification  of  the  soul  before  its  entrance 
into  heaven,  the  whole  intermediate  state  a  simple  penal 
fiery  purgatory ;  which  pushes  out  doctrines  and  expands 
feeling  towards  particular  objects  to  the  extent  to  which 
it  does,  has  had  one  general  fault  very  prominently 
charged  to  it,  viz.,  that  of  exaggeration,  including  in  that 
term  all  that,  commonly  called,  extravagance,  all  that  abuse 
and  perversion  of  the  exaggerative  kind,  which  it  prac¬ 
tically  means. 

Such  is  the  view  ivhich  one  side  takes  of  certain  large 
developments  of  Christian  doctrine,  which  took  place  over 
the  world  after  the  first  centuries,  viz.,  as  deteriorations 
or  corruptions ;  let  us  now  see  how  Mr.  Newman,  as  the 
advocate  of  the  other  side,  proves  them  not  to  be  corrup¬ 
tions,  but  true  and  sound  developments. 

Mr.  Newman’s  argument  on  this  point  proceeds  on  a 
certain  definition  of  corruption ;  a  certain  view  which  he 
lays  down  of  what  corruption  is.  His  definition  of  cor¬ 
ruption  is  “  the  destruction  of  the  norm  or  type.”  “  The 
corruption  of  philosophical  or  political  ideas  is  a  process 
ending  in  dissolution  of  the  body  of  thought  and  usage, 
which  was  bound  up,  as  it  were,  into  one  system  ;  in  the 
destruction  of  the  norm  or  type,  whatever  it  may  be  con¬ 
sidered,  which  made  it  one  ;  in  its  disorganisation ;  in  its 
loss  of  the  principle  of  life  and  growth ;  in  its  resolution 
into  other  distinct  lives,  that  is  into  other  ideas  which 
take  the  place  of  it.”  1  He  adds  : — “  That  development, 

1  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  first  Edition,  p.  62. 


32 


Theory  of  Development. 


then,  is  to  be  considered  a  corruption  which  obscures  or 
prejudices  its  essential  idea,  or  which  disturbs  the  laws 
of  development  which  constitute  its  organisation,  or  which 
reverses  its  course  of  development ;  that  is  not  a  corrup¬ 
tion  which  is  both  a  chronic  and  an  active  state,  or  which 
is  capable  of  holding  together  the  component  parts  of  a 
system.”1  Again,  “The  corruption  of  an  idea  is  that  state  of 
a  development  which  undoes  its  previous  advances.”  2  He 
goes  to  the  analogy  of  nature  :  “  Corruption,  as  seen  in  the 
physical  world,  not  only  immediately  precedes  dissolu¬ 
tion,  but  immediately  follows  upon  development.  It  is 
the  turning-point  or  transition- state  in  that  continuous 
process,  by  which  the  birth  of  a  living  thing  is  mysteri¬ 
ously  connected  with  its  death.  In  this  it  differs  from  a 
reaction,  innovation,  or  reform,  that  it  is  a  state  to  which 
a  development  tends  from  the  first,  at  which  sooner  or 
later  it  arrives,  and  which  is  its  reversal,  while  it  is  its 
continuation.  Animated  natures  live  on  till  they  die  ; 
they  grow  in  order  to  decrease  ;  and  every  hour  which 
brings  them  nearer  to  perfection,  brings  them  nearer  to 
their  end.  Hence  the  resemblance  and  the  difference 
between  a  development  and  corruption  are  brought  into 
close  juxtaposition.” 3  He  introduces  the  existence  of  a 
falling  state  :  “  Thus,  as  to  nations,  when  we  talk  of  the 
spirit  of  a  people  being  lost,  we  do  not  mean  that  this  or 
that  act  has  been  committed,  or  measure  carried,  but  that 
certain  lines  of  thought  or  conduct,  by  which  it  has  grown 
great,  are  abandoned.”  4  In  all  these  passages,  with  the 
exception  of  that  slight  ambiguity  occasionally,  which  in 
argumentative  writing  fulfils  the  purpose  rather  of  guard¬ 
ing  and  securing  a  bold  position  than  really  modifying  it, 
one  bold  assertion  runs  throughout,  viz.,  that  corruption 

1  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  first  Edition,  p.  63. 

2  Ibid.  3  Ibid.  4  Page  69. 


Theory  of  Development. 


33 


can  only  take  place  by  positive  failure  and  decay.  Cor¬ 
ruption  is  the  “  abandonment  of  a  line  of  thought/’ 
Corruption  is  that  which  “  reverses  its  course  of  develop¬ 
ment.”  1  Corruption  is  “  that  state  of  an  idea  which  un¬ 
does  its  previous  advances  2  that  is  to  say,  so  long  as  an 
idea  goes  onward  at  all,  it  is  sure  not  to  be  wrong,  the 
onwardness  of  the  movement  constituting  its  truth. 
“  Where  then  was  the  opportunity  of  corruption,”  he  argues 
in  another  place,  “  in  the  three  hundred  years  between  St. 
Ignatius  and  St.  Augustine  ?  or  between  St.  Augustine  and 
St.  Bede  ?  or  between  St.  Bede  and  St.  Peter  Damiani  ?  .  .  . 
The  tradition  of  eighteen  centuries  becomes  a  chain  of 
indefinitely  many  links,  one  crossing  the  other;  and  each 
year  as  it  comes  is  guaranteed  with  various  degrees  of 
cogency  by  every  year  which  has  gone  before  it.”  3  That 
is  to  say,  corruption  is  excluded  by  the  simple  continuity 
of  progress  on  the  part  of  the  idea  :  there  is  no  interval 
by  which  it  can  slip  in  :  the  steps  lap  over  one  another 
like  scales  :  “  one  is  so  near  to  another  that  no  air  can  come 
between  them  :  they  are  joined  one  to  another,  they  stick 
together  that  they  cannot  be  sundered.” 4  The  definition 
of  true  development  and  of  corruption  is  thus, — of  develop¬ 
ment,  simple  advance ;  of  corruption,  simple  retrogres¬ 
sion  :  of  true  development,  that  which  pushes  out  an 
idea  ;  and  of  corruption,  that  which  extinguishes  it.  A 
philosophical  theory  of  development  makes  all  develop¬ 
ment  true,  so  long  as  it  is  such  in  kind, — so  long  as  there 
is  progression  as  distinguished  from  retreat,  and  enlarge¬ 
ment  as  distinguished  from  reduction.  The  fact  is  its  own 
evidence,  the  mathematical  pledge  and  certificate  of  its 
own  correctness.  So  long  as  an  idea  is  simply  pushed  out, 
extended,  added  to ;  so  long  as  one  step  has  naturally  led 

1  Page  63.  3  Page  367. 

2  Ibid.  4  Job  xli.  16,  17. 

0 


34 


Theory  of  Development . 


to  another,  and  the  movement  has  been  continuous,  and 
course  onward ;  so  long  as  it  can  appeal  to  a  naturally 
gliding  career,  to  a  process  in  which  the  end  of  one 
advance  has  fitted  on  to  the  beginning  of  the  next,  to  a 
line  of  arithmetical  consistency  and  material  succession, 
so  long  its  career  is  ipso  facto  right.  “  The  destruction  of 
the  special  laws  or  principles  of  a  development  is  the 
corruption  of  an  idea,” 1  and  that  only. 

Now  this  definition  simply  omits  the  whole  notice  of 
corruption  by  excess.  Corruption  being  defined  to  be 
loss  of  type,  it  follows  that  exaggeration,  which  is  not 
this,  is  not  corruption.  The  latter  has  no  head  for  it  to 
come  under,  and  is  not  taken  cognisance  of.  If  indeed 
it  be  asked  whether  Mr.  Newman  wholly  denies  that 
there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  exaggeration,  the  answer  is 
that  he  does  not,  but  that  he  does  not  admit  and  recognise 
it  argumentatively.  The  value  of  a  truth  lies  in  its 
recognition  in  the  argument.  If  the  argument  does  not 
recognise  it,  an  incidental  allusion  to  such  a  truth  in 
some  other  connection  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  In  those 
two  or  three  places  where  he  appears  to  allude  to  this 
truth,  the  allusion  stops  with  itself,  and  nothing  comes 
of  it.  To  take  the  following  passage  : — 

“  It  is  the  rule  of  creation,  or  rather  of  the  phenomena 
which  it  presents,  that  life  passes  on  to  its  termination  by  a 
gradual  imperceptible  course  of  change.  There  is  ever  a 
maximum  in  earthly  excellence,  and  the  operation  of  the 
same  causes  which  made  things  great  makes  them  small 
again.  Weakness  is  but  the  resulting  product  of  power. 
Events  move  in  cycles ;  all  things  come  round,  ‘  the  sun 
ariseth  and  goeth  down,  and  hasteth  to  his  place  where  he 
arose/  Flowers  first  bloom  and  then  fade  ;  fruit  ripens  and 
decays.  The  fermenting  process,  unless  stopped  at  the  due 
point,  corrupts  the  liquor  which  it  has  created.  The  grace 
1  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  first  Edition,  page  69. 


Theory  of  Development. 


35 


of  spring,  the  richness  of  autumn,  are  hut  for  a  moment,  and 
worldly  moralists  bid  us  carjje  diem,  for  we  shall  have  no 
second  opportunity.  Virtue  seems  to  lie  in  a  mean  between 
vice  and  vice,  and,  as  it  grew  out  of  imperfection,  so  to  grow 
into  enormity.  There  is  a  limit  to  human  knowledge,  and 
both  sacred  and  profane  writers  witness  that  overwisdom  is 
folly.  And  in  the  political  world  states  rise  and  fall,  in¬ 
struments  of  their  aggrandisement  becoming  the  weapons  of 
their  destruction.  And  hence  the  frequent  ethical  maxims, 
such  as  ‘  Ne  quid  nimis,’  ‘  Medio  tutissimus,’  ‘  Vaulting  am¬ 
bition,’  which  seem  to  imply  that  too  much  of  what  is  good 
is  evil.”  1 

Here  allusion  is  made  to  the  idea  of  exaggeration,  and 
it  is  implied  that  the  idea  is  true,  and  that  there  may  be 
such  a  thing.  Various  time-honoured  maxims,  “Ne 
quid  nimis  !”  “  Medio  tutissimus/’  are  alluded  to.  The 
“  virtue  which  grows  into  enormity,”  and  that  “  too  much 
of  good  which  is  evil,”  are  alluded  to.  A  whole  side  of 
truth,  as  seen  in  “  the  appearance  of  things  and  popular 
language,  ” 2  the  phenomenon  of  good  becoming  evil  by 
excess  (though  with  the  protest  against  the  paradox 
that  good  leads  “  literally  ”  to  evil, — a  metaphysical  part 
of  the  subject  which  we  have  already  shown  not  to  inter¬ 
fere  with  the  phenomenon),  are  alluded  to.  The  chapter  is 
on  the  subject  of  “Preservative  additions,”  and  therefore 
the  idea  of  exaggeration  almost  necessarily  must  be  alluded 
to  in  it.  And  accordingly  we  do  find  an  allusion  to  it. 
But  when  it  has  been  alluded  to,  it  is  alluded  to  no 
more.  The  subject  drops.  The  idea  of  excess  in  growth 
becomes  mixed  with  quite  a  different  idea,  that  of  a 
climax  or  end  of  growth,  the  consummation  which  pre¬ 
cedes  decay,  the  bloom  of  flowers  before  they  fade,  the 
maturity  of  fruits  before  they  rot ;  and  after  coming  up 
to  the  top  once  or  twice,  vanishes  altogether,  leaving 


1  Page  87. 


2  Ibid. 


Theory  of  Development. 


6 


that  of  a  “ corroborative,”  ‘‘adding,”  “illustrating”  develop¬ 
ment  to  proceed  without  a  check. 

Whereas  then  the  ordinary  charge  maintained  by 
English  divines  against  the  Roman  system  is,  as  we  have 
said,  that  of  exaggeration,  and  abuse  in  exaggeration,  we 
have  here  a  definition  of  corruption  which  excludes 
exaggeration  from  its  meaning.  With  such  a  definition, 
an  arguer  of  course  proceeds  with  considerable  advantage 
to  vindicate  the  Roman  system  from  all  corruption.  He 
has  only  to  say  that  Roman  doctrines  have  not  destroyed 
or  reversed  the  ideas  and  feelings  in  which  they  arose  ; 
that  in  distinction  to  being  departures  from  original  truths 
altogether,  they  have  been  expansions,  growths,  develop¬ 
ments  ;  and  immediately  no  absence  whatever  of  measure 
in  extent  of  expansion,  growth,  development,  can  make 
corruptions  of  them.  They  are  secure  by  the  definition, 
and  have  a  pledge  of  faultlessness  which  no  controver¬ 
sialist  can  touch. 

Such  is  Mr.  Newmans  general  argument;  and  we  need 
not  say  there  is  an  obvious  form  of  reply  to  it.  It  is 
open  to  any  one  to  deny  the  correctness  and  completeness 
of  Mr.  Newman's  definition,  and  to  assert  that  there  is  a 
kind  of  corruption  which  is  not  a  whole  departure  from 
an  original  type,  but  which  carries  out  that  type  exces¬ 
sively  and  extravagantly;  that  such  a  kind  is  seen  in  life 
and  morals  ;  and  that  it  may  take  place  in  religious 
systems  too.  Mr.  Newman  asks,  indeed,  what  room  there 
is  for  error  to  slip  in  in  a  course  of  absolutely  continuous 
advance ;  but  is  not  this  just  the  question  which  any 
one  in  any  case  of  the  most  ordinary  exaggeration  may 
ask  ?  A  man  carries  out  some  natural  feeling  or  habit  to 
an  obvious  excess.  If  fault  is  found  with  him,  he  can  of 
course  demand  to  know  the  exact  point  at  which  the 
action  of  the  feeling  ceased  to  be  right  and  began  to  be 


37 


Theory  of  Development. 

wrong.  He  can  say  that  the  feeling  was  certainly  good 
in  him  to  begin  with  ;  that  being  good  to  begin  with,  it 
has  been  carried  on  continuously,  each  advance  in  it 
naturally  leading  to  a  further  one  ;  and  that  at  last  he 
finds  himself  in  the  state  of  feeling  in  which  he  is.  An 
ultra-fastidious  taste,  a  morbid  delicacy,  a  lavish  liberality, 
a  haughty  self-respect,  a  venturesome,  a  hasty,  an  obsti¬ 
nate,  a  garrulous,  a  taciturn  temper,  may  each  give  this 
account  of  itself.  And  our  answer  in  each  case  would  be, 
that  we  were  not  obliged  to  fix  accurately  on  the  par¬ 
ticular  line  which  separated  good  from  bad,  sound  from 
unsound  ;  that  we  observed  the  feeling  or  habit  had  made 
the  advance  which  it  had,  and  that  we  judged  of  it  as  we 
did.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  process  of  exaggeration  to 
be  thus  continuous,  subtle,  and  gradual.  But  this  is  no 
difficulty  with  us.  We  look  to  the  result,  which  is  plain 
and  large,  and  not  to  the  steps,  which  are  subtle  and 
small.  And  therefore,  when  Mr.  Newman,  in  the  case  of 
the  Boman  development,  sends  us  back  from  the  result 
to  the  process,  and  with  a  phenomenon  before  us,  will 
not  let  us  judge  of  it  till  we  have  accurately  accounted 
for  its  rise  ;  when  he  says,  “  Where  was  the  opportunity 
between  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Bede,  and  between  St. 
Bede  and  St.  Peter  Damiani  ?  ”  and  requires  us  to  pick 
some  definite  hole  in  the  process  as  such,  before  we 
hesitate  at  the  result,  we  can  only  say  that  the  request 
is  not  a  reasonable  one  ;  that  we  do  not  judge  in  moral 
and  religious  subjects  as  we  do  in  mathematical,  in  which 
the  process  is  everything,  and  the  result  mechanically 
forced  upon  us  by  it,  but  judge  of  the  result  indepen¬ 
dently,  and  seeing  an  exaggeration  for  a  result,  can  pro¬ 
nounce  that  the  process  has  been  in  some  way  or  other, 
however  gradually  and  insensibly,  an  exaggerating  process. 

Indeed,  Mr.  Newman’s  own  reason,  incidentally  given 


38  Theory  of  Development. 

in  one  place,  for  his  taking  no  notice  of  this  great  depart¬ 
ment  of  error,  is  a  sufficiently  self-convicting  one.  He 
mentions  excess  in  one  place,  and  mentions  it  as  some¬ 
thing  wrong  ;  but  says  he  is  not  concerned  with  it,  because 
excess  is  not  “  corruption,”  and  he  is  only  concerned  with 
the  question  whether  Boman  doctrines  are  corruptions 
or  not.  “We  predicate  corruption  not  of  the  extreme 
(meaning  something  wrong  by  the  extreme),  which  pre¬ 
serves,  but  that  which  destroys  a  type.”  1  That  is  to  say, 
he  excludes  the  idea  of  excess,  because  he  has  limited  the 
idea  of  corruption  so  as  to  exclude  it.  But  surely  this  is 
no  legitimate  reason,  for  the  question  is  easily  asked, 
Why  did  he  so  limit  his  idea  of  corruption  ?  He 
has,  by  the  nature  of  his  argument,  to  clear  the  Boman 
developments  of  all  that  is  wrong,  of  whatever  kind 
and  by  whatever  name  called.  Well,  here  is  something 
wrong,  and  something,  therefore,  from  which  he  has  to 
clear  the  Boman  developments.  He  does  not  relieve 
himself  of  this  task  by  saying  that  he  does  not  admit 
this  particular  wrong  thing  into  his  definition  of  corrup¬ 
tion  ;  it  exists  all  the  same  whether  admitted  into  that 
definition  or  not,  and  whether  outside  or  inside  of  the 
meaning  of  that  word  ;  and,  existing,  has  to  be  disproved. 
The  arguer  in  the  present  case  may  take  corruption  in 
any  sense  he  likes,  as  far  as  the  word  is  concerned,  and 
may  take  it  exclusively  in  its  etymological  sense  of  decay 
or  dissolution.  But  in  that  sense,  if  there  is  anything 
else  wrong  which  is  not  corruption,  he  cannot  put  it 
aside,  because  he  has  not  made  it  corruption.  He  has 
adopted  a  defective  and  partial  type  of  evil,  and  therefore 
must  admit  other  types  to  his  argumentative  notice  when 
they  present  themselves.  At  present  the  hiatus  in  the 
argument  before  us  is  a  large  one.  We  wonder,  while 

1  Page  64. 


39 


Theory  of  Development. 

we  read,  at  the  ease  with  which  the  conclusion  is  arrived 
at,  and  feel  an  argumentative  power  drawing  us  along 
without  a  tendency  to  convince  us,  or  relieve  the  per¬ 
petual  undefined  consciousness  of  something  wanting. 
As  Mr.  Newman's  argument  stands  at  present,  he  first 
excludes  that  form  of  error  which  is  charged  upon  the 
Eoman  system  from  the  field  of  existence,  and  then  securely 
determines  on  that  system’s  perfection.  He  defines,  and  then 
proceeds  on  his  own  definition.  The  scholar,  in  the  old 
illustration  of  logic,  who  was  locked  up  in  the  Bodleian 
after  four  o’clock,  and  from  the  window  asked  the  beadle 
in  the  quadrangle  to  let  him  out,  was  refuted  out  of 
Bocardo  :  no  man  is  in  the  Bodleian  after  four  o’clock  ; 
therefore  you  are  not  in  the  Bodleian.  The  arguer  first 
limited  the  capacity  of  the  Bodleian  for  holding  human 
beings  to  the  part  of  the  day  before  four  o’clock,  and 
then  irresistibly  inferred  that  there  were  none  in  it 
after.  Mr.  Newman  limits  deterioration  to  that  form 
in  which  it  does  not  apply  to  the  Boman  system,  and 
then  confidently  determines  that  there  has  been  no 
deterioration. 

Having  noticed  the  substantial  argument,  we  shall  not 
follow  the  detail  and  division  through  which  Mr.  New¬ 
man  subsequently  takes  it.  The  Christian  “  Tests  of  true 
development  ”  which  he  gives,  only  profess  to  be,  and 
only  are,  an  expansion  of  the  one  and  leading  argument. 
They  all  successively  go  on  the  supposition  that  there  is 
no  kind  of  corruption  but  that  of  the  departure  from,  and 
destruction  of .  an  idea.  Ina  development  he  says  there 
should  be,  first,  the  “  preservation  of  the  idea  ;  ” 1  secondly, 
“  continuity  of  principles  ;”  thirdly,  “  power  of  assimila¬ 
tion  fourthly,  “early  anticipation;”  fifthly,  “logical 
sequence;”  sixthly,  “preservative  additions;”  seventhly, 

1  Page  64. 


40 


Theory  of  Development. 


“  chronic  continuance.”  Of  such  a  series  of  tests  we  can 
only  say,  that  in  any  sense — and  we  presume  this  is  not 
intended — in  which  they  do  not  beg  the  question  at  issue 
every  one  of  them  may  be  responded  to,  and  the  result 
may  still  be  an  exaggeration, — an  enormity.  An  evident 
exaggeration  may  “  preserve  the  idea,”  may  “  continue  the 
principles,”  i.e.  go  on  in  the  same  direction,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  a  totally  contrary  one,  with  the  original 
idea;  it  may  make  its  additions  preservative  of,  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  destructive  of,  the  idea.  Of  logical 
sequence,  we  have  something  to  say  shortly.  How 
“  power  of  assimilation,”  “  early  anticipation,” 1  and 
<c  chronic  continuance,”  can  prove  a  doctrine  in  a  Church, 
any  more  than  a  disposition  in  an  individual,  to  be  cor¬ 
rect,  we  do  not  see.  The  latter  test  is  proved  thus  : — 
“  Dissolution  is  the  state  to  which  corruption  tends  : 
corruption,  therefore,  cannot  be  of  long  standing.” 2  “  Cor¬ 
ruption  is  a  transition  state,  leading  to  a  crisis,” 3  the  crisis, 
viz.,  of  extinction.  It  follows  that  “  that  which  is  both  a 
chronic  and  an  active  state  is  not  a  corruption,”  and  that 
“  duration  is  a  test  of  a  faithful  development.”  4  But  this 
proof  rests  entirely  on  the  one  prevailing  assumption,  viz., 
that  there  is  no  other  kind  of  corruption  or  deterioration 
but  that  of  failure.  The  idea  of  exaggeration  does  not 
enter.  We  see  no  reason  for  our  part  why  failure  may 
not  be  a  long  as  well  as  a  short  process.  But  to  say  that 
doctrinal  exaggerations  may  not  get  strong  hold  of  large 
portions  of  the  world,  and  gain  a  chronic  continuance, 
would  certainly  be,  in  our  opinion,  as  purely  arbitrary  an 
assumption  as  any  reasoner  could  make.  The  tests  as  a 
whole,  in  short,  following  the  general  argument  of  which 
they  are  the  ramifications,  just  refuse  to  touch  the  point 
for  which  their  testing  virtue  is  most  solicited  ;  and  allow 
1  Pages  73,  77.  2  Page  90.  3  Ibid.  4  Page  91. 


Theory  of  Development . 


4i 


the  most  common  fault  charged  upon  the  system  they  are 
to  test,  to  slip  through  them. 

Of  one  of  these  tests,  however,  we  must  speak,  inas¬ 
much  as  it  is  one  which,  if  truly  answered  to,  entirely 
settles  the  question  of  truth  or  falsehood  in  a  development. 
We  mean  the  test  of  logical  sequence.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  what  is  logically  derived  from  any  acknow¬ 
ledged  truth  is  as  true  as  that  from  which  it  is  derived. 
But  then  the  question  comes,  How  are  we  to  insure  the 
right  application  of  this  test,  and  how  prove,  in  any  given 
case,  to  other  minds,  that  such  and  such  inferences  are 
logically  drawn?  We  have  heard  much  lately  of  the 
necessity  of  accepting  all  the  consequences  of  the  truths 
we  hold,  to  the  utmost  bounds  of  logical  exhaustion. 
Perfectly  acknowledging  the  necessity,  we  want  to  know 
how  the  acknowledgment  is  to  facilitate  the  argument, 
and  how  certain  conclusions  are  proved  to  be  logical. 

The  region  of  logic  is  a  very  plain  and  very  unanimous 
one,  up  to  a  certain  line.  Where  a  thorough  agreement 
and  understanding  as  to  any  premisses  exist,  all  competent 
men  will  draw  the  same  conclusions  from  them ;  and  the 
inference  will  command  acceptance,  and  carry  self-evident 
truth  with  it.  All  mankind  infer  from  the  facts  before 
them,  that  sunshine  ripens,  that  rain  makes  things  grow, 
that  food  nourishes,  that  fire  warms.  All  men  who  knew 
what  a  watch  was,  would  infer  that  it  had  a  maker.  We 
may  go  into  moral  nature, — and  so  far  as  people  under¬ 
stand,  and  are  agreed  upon  their  moral  ground,  they  will 
raise  the  same  inferences  upon  it ;  all  people,  e.g.,  who 
appreciate  the  fact  of  a  conscience,  will  infer  from  it  future 
reward  or  punishment.  We  may  come  to  theology,  and 
so  far  as  men  have  a  fair  agreement  and  understanding  as 
to  any  idea,  they  will  draw  the  same  inference  from  it. 
In  all  these  cases  the  inferences  will  be  the  same,  because 


42 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  premisses  being  the  same  in  people’s  minds,  the  infer¬ 
ences  are  actually  contained  in  the  premisses,  and  go  along 
with  them.  But  what  explains  the  commanding  irresist¬ 
ibleness  of  the  inferential  process  at  the  same  time  limits 
its  range.  When  the  inferential  process  enters  upon  a 
ground  where  there  is  not  this  good  understanding,  or 
when  it  slides  out  of  its  own  simply  inferential  functions 
into  conjectural  ones  and  attempts  discovery,  it  loses  this 
command ;  arid  the  appeal  to  simple  logic  to  force  un¬ 
accepted  premisses,  or  subtle  conjectures,  will  not  answer. 
On  this  latter  sort  of  ground,  one  man’s  logic  will  differ 
from  another  man’s  logic  ;  and  one  will  draw  one  inference 
and  another  another ;  and  one  will  draw  more  and 
another  less  in  the  same  direction  of  inference.  In  this 
way  the  logical  controversy  proceeded  on  the  great 
doctrines  of  Christianity  in  the  first  centuries  :  different 
sects  developed  them  in  their  own  way;  and  each  sect 
appealed  triumphantly  to  the  logical  irresistibleness  of  its 
development.  The  Arian,  the  Nestorian,  the  Apollinarian, 
the  Eutychian,  the  Monothelite  developments,  each  began 
with  a  great  truth,  and  each  professed  to  demand  one,  and 
only  one,  treatment  for  it.  All  successively  had  one 
watchword,  and  that  was,  Be  logical.  Be  logical,  said 
the  Arian  :  Jesus  Christ  is  the  son  of  God  ;  a  son  cannot 
be  coeval  with  his  father.  Be  logical,  said  the  Nestorian  : 
Jesus  Christ  was  man  and  was  God ;  he  was  therefore 
two  persons.  Be  logical,  said  the  Apollinarian :  Jesus 
Christ  was  not  two  persons;  he  was  not,  therefore,  perfect 
God  and  perfect  man  too.  Be  logical,  said  the  Eutychian  : 
J esus  Christ  was  only  one  person  ;  he  could  therefore 
only  have  one  nature.  Be  logical,  said  the  Monothelite  : 
Jesus  Christ  was  only  one  person  ;  he  could  therefore  only 
have  one  will.  Be  logical,  said  the  Macedonian :  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  the  Spirit  of  the  Father,  and  therefore  can- 


Theory  of  Development. 


43 


not  be  a  person  distinct  from  the  Father.  Be  logical, 
said  the  Sabellian  :  God  is  one,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
three.  Be  logical,  said  the  Manicliean  :  evil  is  not  derived 
from  God,  and  therefore  must  be  an  original  substance  in¬ 
dependent.  of  Him.  Be  logical,  said  the  Gnostic  :  an  in¬ 
finite  Deity  cannot  really  assume  a  finite  body.  Be  logical, 
said  the  Novatian  :  there  is  only  one  baptism  for  the 
remission  of  sins  ;  there  is  therefore  no  remission  for  sin 
after  baptism.  Be  logical,  to  come  to  later  times,  said  the 
Calvinist :  God  predestinates,  and  therefore  man  has  not 
free  will.  Be  logical,  said  the  Anabaptist  :  the  Gospel 
bids  us  to  communicate  our  goods,  and  therefore  does  not 
sanction  property  in  them.  Be  logical,  says  the  Quaker  : 
the  Gospel  enjoins  meekness,  and  therefore  forbids  war. 
Be  logical,  says  every  sect  and  school :  you  admit  our 
premisses ;  you  do  not  admit  our  conclusions.  You  are 
inconsistent.  You  go  a  certain  way,  and  then  arbitrarily 
stop.  You  admit  a  truth,  but  do  not  push  it  to  its 
legitimate  consequences.  You  are  superficial ;  you  want 
depth.  Thus  on  every  kind  of  question  in  religion  has 
human  logic  from  the  first  imposed  imperially  its  own 
conclusions ;  and  encountered  equally  imperial  counter 
ones.  The  truth  is,  that  human  reason  is  liable  to  error ; 
and  to  make  logic  infallible,  we  must  have  an  infallible 
logician.  -  Whenever  such  infallibility  speaks  to  us,  if 
ancient  proved  tradition  be  such,  or  if  the  contemporary 
voice  of  the  universal  Church  be  such,  we  are  bound  to 
obey ;  but  the  mere  apparent  consecutiveness  itself,  which 
carries  on  an  idea  from  one  stage  to  another,  is  no  sort  of 
guarantee,  except  to  the  mind  of  the  individual  thinker 
himself.  The  whole  dogmatic  creed  of  the  Church  has 
been  formed  in  direct  contradiction  to  such  apparent  lines 
of  consecutiveness.  The  Nestorian  saw  as  clearly  as  his 
logic  could  tell  him,  that  two  persons  must  follow  from 


44 


Theory  of  Development. 


two  natures.  The  Monophysite  saw  as  clearly  as  his  logic 
could  tell  him,  that  one  nature  must  follow  from  one 
person.  The  Arian,  the  Monothelite,  the  Manichean,  saw 
as  clearly  as  their  logic  could  tell  them  on  their  respective 
questions,  and  argued  inevitably  and  convincingly  to 
themselves.  To  the  intellectual  imagination  of  the  great 
heresiarchs  of  the  early  ages,  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s 
nature  took  boldly  some  one  line,  and  developed  con¬ 
tinuously  and  straightforwardly  some  one  idea ;  it 
demanded  unity  and  consistency.  The  creed  of  the 
Church,  steering  between  extremes  and  uniting  opposites, 
was  a  timid  artificial  creation,  a  work  of  diplomacy.  In 
a  sense  they  were  right.  The  explanatory  creed  of  the 
Church  was  a  diplomatic  work  ;  it  was  diplomatic,  because 
it  was  faithful.  With  a  shrewdness  and  nicety  like  that  of 
some  ablest  and  most  sustained  course  of  state-craft  and 
cabinet  policy,  it  went  on  adhering  to  a  complex  original 
idea,  and  balancing  one  tendency  in  it  by  another.  One 
heresiarcli  after  another  would  have  infused  boldness  into 
it ;  they  appealed  to  one  element  and  another  in  it,  which 
they  wanted  to  be  developed  indefinitely.  The  creed 
kept  its  middle  course,  rigidly  combining  opposites  ;  and 
a  mixed  and  balanced  erection  of  dogmatic  language 
arose.  One  can  conceive  the  view  which  a  great  heretical 
mind,  like  that  of  Nestorius,  e.g.,  would  take  of  such  a 
course  ;  the  keen,  bitter,  and  almost  lofty  contempt  which, 
— with  his  logical  view  of  our  Lord  inevitably  deduced  and 
clearly  drawn  out  in  his  own  mind, — he  would  cast  upon 
that  creed  which  obstinately  shrank  from  the  call,  and 
seemed  to  prefer  inconsistency,  and  refuse  to  carry  out 
truth. 

Let  us  examine  how  this  logical  process  acts,  in  one  or 
two  instances,  in  the  department  of  doctrine  before  us. 

In  the  case  of  Purgatory,  for  example.  The  doctrine 


Theory  of  Development. 


45 


of  Purgatory,  we  are  told,  is  a  corollary  from  the  doctrine 
of  Repentance.1  The  one  is  contained  in  the  other.  Admit 
the  doctrine  of  Repentance,  in  its  genuine  meaning,  and 
you  cannot  stop  short :  it  carries  you,  by  necessary 
reasoning,  to  a  Purgatory. 

It  is  not  easy,  indeed,  to  see  at  first  what  this  logical 
claim  means.  The  principle  of  Repentance  is  a  general 
Gospel  principle.  Taken  in  a  satisfactional  sense,  it  still 
remains  a  general  principle, — the  principle  that  sin  should 
be  atoned  for  by  pain.  Purgatory,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
a  particular  fact.  A  general  principle  cannot  involve, 
logically,  a  particular  fact.  Charity  is  a  general  principle 
— the  principle  that  we  should  love  and  do  good  to  others. 
The  general  principle  of  Charity  cannot,  without  an 
absurdity,  be  said  logically  to  involve  a  given  instance  of 
it  at  a  given  time ;  as  that  we  should  give,  on  such  a  day, 
such  a  sum  to  such  a  person.  If  such  a  fact  takes  place, 
indeed,  it  is  a  consequence  of  the  principle,  but  the  fact 
cannot  be  inferred  from  the  principle.  Purgatory  is  a 
particular  place,  entered  into  at  a  particular  time,  viz., 
between  death  and  the  Day  of  Judgment,  for  the  endurance 
of  pain  for  sin.  That  particular  endurance  of  pain  is  no 
more  to  be  inferred  from  the  general  principle  that  pain 
should  be  endured  for  sin,  than  the  particular  act  of 
charity  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  general  principle  that  we 
should  act  charitably.  We  draw  from  an  approving  and 
disapproving  conscience,  indeed,  the  inference  of  reward 
or  punishment  for  actions.  True ;  but  that  the  sentence 
will  be  awarded  on  a  particular  day,  that  that  day  will  be  at 
a  particular  time,  viz.,  at  the  end  of  the  world,  and  that  all 
the  world  will  be  judged  together,  are  not  contained  in 
the  principle  of  conscience,  but  are  matters  of  simple 
revelation.  We  believe  in  a  Day  of  Judgment,  because 

1  Page  417. 


46 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  fact  is  revealed  to  ns  ;  and  why  are  we  to  believe  in  a 
Purgatory,  but  for  a  similar  reason  ? 

There  is  an  obvious  hiatus  in  such  an  argument,  and 
Mr.  Newman  fills  it  up  in  the  following  way.  If  the 
pain  endured  for  sin,  he  says,  is  necessary,  not  only  as  a 
sign  of  contrition  for,  but  as  an  absolute  satisfaction  for 
sin,  then  whatever  amount  of  it  ought  to  be  endured 
cannot  be  diminished  from.  Consequently,  if  it  is  not 
endured  in  this  world,  it  must  be  endured  in  another. 
The  early  Church,  by  their  rigorous  penances,  inflicted  it 
in  this  world  :  those  penances  have  since  been  softened  : 
it  follows  that  the  difference  must  be  suffered  in  purgatory. 
“  How,”  he  asks,  “  is  the  complement  of  that  satisfaction 
to  be  wrought  out,  which  on  just  grounds  of  expedience 
has  been  suspended  in  the  Church  now?1  ...  If  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  death  or  the  exercise  of  the  Church's  discre¬ 
tion,  the  ‘plena  penitentia ’  is  not  accomplished  in  its 
ecclesiastical  shape,  how  or  when  will  the  residue  be 
exacted?”2  We  will  explain  the  particular  assumption 
on  which  the  force  of  this  reasoning  depends  : — 

Minds  properly  alive  to  the  nature  of  sin,  will  admit 
the  doctrine  of  satisfactional  pain  in  every  practical  and 
ethical  sense.  It  is  a  doctrine  not  peculiar  to  Christianity, 
but  part  of  natural  religion,  and  does  not  apply  to  post- 
baptismal  sin  only,  but  to  all  sin  whatever.  Every  one 
who  genuinely  feels  that  he  has  committed  a  sin,  will  feel 
something  of  an  impulse  to  punish  himself  for  it.  A 
heathen  will  feel  it.  It  is  an  original  instinct  in  our 
nature,  though  post-baptismal  sin  comes  peculiarly  under 
its  operation,  as  being  the  much  greater  sin  of  a  fall  from 
special  grace.  The  mere  necessary  pain  contained  in  the 
sense  of  guilt  tends  to  lead  us  to  some  action  similar  and 
cognate  to  itself.  Even  the  mere  additional  internal  self- 
1  Page  414.  2  Page  415. 


Theory  of  Development. 


47 


mortification  wliicli  the  increase  of  care  and  vigilance  to 
avoid  a  repetition  of  the  sin  will  cause,  will  he  regarded 
hy  the  mind  as  in  some  way  satisfactional,  and  atoning 
for  the  past ;  and  that  aspect  of  such  discipline  will  be 
reposed  in  with  a  natural  accompanying  sense  of  relief  to 
the  mind,  side  hy  side  with,  but  distinct  from,  the  other 
aspect  of  self- amendment  and  improvement.  The  idea 
has  laid  irrevocable  hold  of  common  language,  and  we 
talk  about  a  person  “  atoning  for  his  conduct,”  “  making- 
satisfaction,”  and  so  on,  not  confining  the  meaning  of 
such  expressions,  though  we  use  them  vaguely  enough,  to 
effects  of  such  atoning  conduct  in  the  way  of  compensa¬ 
tion  to  others,  but  including  the  person  himself  also  under 
its  benefit  and  grace.  As  a  practical  truth,  then,  we 
believe  in  satisfactional  pain  ;  we  believe,  i.e.  that  we 
ought  to  be  willing  to  undergo  pain  as  a  punishment  for 
sin,  and  that  to  do  so  is  beneficial  to  us  and  pleasing  to 
God. 

But  as  soon  as  we  leave  the  practical  ground,  and  enter 
on  the  metaphysical, — as  soon  as  we  have  to  do  with  the 
intrinsic  value  of  such  pain  itself,  and  its  real  effect,  as  so 
much  pain,  upon  our  eternal  condition,  we  enter  upon  a 
subject  on  which  we  are  wholly  ignorant,  and  on  which 
we  have  no  means  of  forming  a  conclusion.  Mr.  Newman  s 
argument  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  equal  sinners 
must  suffer  equal  amounts  of  pain,  in  punishment  for 
their  sin.  But  this  is  an  assumption  and  nothing  more. 
We  know  what  the  sinner’s  disposition  should  be,  on  his 
side  :  we  do  not  know  what  God’s  dispensation  is,  on  the 
the  other.  We  do  not  fully  know  upon  what  laws,  or  for 
what  reasons,  He  inflicts,  in  the  course  of  His  Providence, 
various  degrees  and  forms  of  suffering  upon  those  moral 
beings  whom  He  is  training  for  a  future  life.  The  im- 

o  o 

provements  in  the  art  of  medicine,  and  the  greater  security 


48 


Theory  of  Development. 


of  civil  government,  have  relieved  Christians  of  a  later 
age  from  much  pain  which  Christians  of  an  earlier  under¬ 
went.  There  are  all  shades  of  difference  in  suffering 
among  Christians  of  the  same  age ;  and  some  of  the  same 
apparent  goodness  have  much  less  bodily  illness  than 
others.  We  do  not  know  why  all  these  differences  take 
place ;  and  therefore  to  proceed  to  calculate  them,  and 
infer  from  them  that  complement  to  come  in  each  case, 
which  is  to  give  the  balance,  would  be  to  argue  in  the 
dark.  The  Christian  penances  were  less  rigorous  at  first, 
became  more  rigorous  after,  became  less  rigorous  after 
that :  to  say  that  a  Christian,  who  repented  with  the  same 
sustained  care  and  self-denying  disposition  in  a  less  severe 
age  of  the  Church,  would  have  to  go,  after  death,  into 
Purgatory,  because  he  had  not  suffered  so  much  pain  as 
a  brother  Christian  in  another  age,  is  one  of  those  forced 
pieces  of  reasoning  which  show  their  arbitrary  basis. 
The  great  difficulties  connected  with  the  visible  course  of 
Providence,  as  regards  our  preparation  for  a  final  state, 
every  one  grants.  The  difference  we  see  in  persons’  situa¬ 
tions,  educations,  spiritual  opportunities  here ;  the  pre¬ 
mature  death,  which  seems  to  cut  the  formation  of  a 
character  in  the  middle  ;  the  existence  of  those  vast 
masses  we  see,  of  whose  character  we  cannot  pronounce 
decidedly  either  way,  suggest  undefined  and  involuntary 
conjectures  to  our  minds  with  respect  to  the  intermediate 
state.  But  we  are  not  concerned  here  with  conjecture 
but  with  logic. 

Such  is  the  main  argument  for  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory 
itself.  A  defensive  one,  to  account  for  the  fact  of  its  late 
introduction,  is  skilfully  turned  into  the  same  channel, 
and  made  to  tell  positively  for  it.  “  Considering,”  says 
Mr.  Newman,  “  the  length  of  time  which  separates  Christ’s 
first  and  second  coming,  the  millions  of  faithful  souls 


Theory  of  Development . 


49 


who  are  exhausting  it,  and  the  intimate  concern  which 
every  Christian  has  in  the  determination  of  its  character, 
it  might  have  been  expected  that  Scripture  would  have 
spoken  explicitly  concerning  it,  whereas,  in  fact,  its  notices 
are  but  brief  and  obscure.  We  might  indeed  have  argued 
that  this  silence  was  intentional,  with  a  view  of  dis¬ 
couraging  speculations  upon  the  subject,  except  for  the 
circumstance  that,  as  in  the  question  of  our  post-baptismal 
state,  its  teaching  seems  to  proceed  upon  an  hypothesis 
inapplicable  to  the  state  of  the  Church  since  the  time  it 
was  delivered.  As  Scripture  contemplates  Christians, 
not  as  backsliders,  but  as  saints,  so  does  it  apparently 
represent  the  Day  of  Judgment  as  immediate,  and  the 
interval  of  expectation  as  evanescent.  It  leaves  on  our 
minds  the  general  impression  that  Christ  was  returning 
on  earth  at  once,  ‘  the  time  short/  worldly  engagements 
superseded  by  ‘  the  present  distress/  persecutors  urgent, 
Christians  sinless  and  expectant,  without  home,  without 
plan  for  the  future,  looking  up  to  heaven.  But  outward 
circumstances  have  changed ;  and  with  the  change  of 
necessity  a  different  application  of  the  revealed  word 
became  necessary.”1  The  argument  here  accounts  for  the 
difference  of  doctrine  in  the  primitive  and  in  a  later  age, 
by  the  fact  of  there  being  a  totally  different  state  of  things 
before  the  Christian  mind  at  these  two  periods ;  it  asserts 
that,  Christians  being  contemplated  as  sinless,  and  the 
Day  of  Judgment  as  immediate  in  the  first,  and  both  of 
these  views  being  reversed  in  the  second,  Purgatory, 
which  was  superfluous  in  the  former  of  the  two  periods, 
obtained  a  legitimate  existence  in  the  latter.  Now 
with  respect  to  one  of  these  two  assertions, — without  at 
all  denying  the  existence  of  such  an  expectation  as  Mr. 
Newman  mentions  in  the  early  Church,  viz.,  that  the 

1  Page  100. 

D 


50 


Theory  of  Development. 


world  was  coming  immediately  to  an  end — it  is  surely 
not  true  to  say  that  “  Scripture  leaves  on  the  mind  the 
general  impression  ”  that  that  expectation  was  right.  The 
prophecies  of  St.  Paul,  pointing  forward  to  the  “  fulness 
of  the  Gentiles,”  i.e.  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  over  the 
world,  and  the  restoration  of  the  Jews  (whatever  that  is) 
to  take  place  when  that  epoch  had  arrived,  convey  a  first 
impression  certainly  of  a  very  opposite  kind.  Those 
prophecies  of  St.  John,  which  look  onward  to  the  rise  of 
great  events  and  large  changes  and  commotions  over  the 
political  surface  of  the  world,  to  the  career  of  empires  and 
to  their  fall,  and  to  the  time  “  when  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  are  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of 
his  Christ,”  leave  a  like  impression.  We  do  not  naturally 
imagine  St.  Paul  or  St.  John  thinking  that  the  world 
was  going  to  end  immediately ;  and  St.  Paul  in  one  place 
specially  corrects  that  notion. 

With  respect  to  the  other  point,  that  Scripture  “  con¬ 
templates  Christians  as  sinless,”  if  it  be  meant  by  this 
that  it  contemplates  them  as  sinless  so  far  as  they  are 
Christians,  it  certainly  does  ;  and  so  has  the  Church  done 
always.  But  if  it  be  meant — and  the  distinction  in 
the  matter-of-fact  state  of  things  at  the  two  periods  is 
the  one  wanted  for  the  argument — that  Scripture  con¬ 
templates  Christians  as  sinless  in  fact,  this  it  certainly  does 
not  do,  for  there  is  no  ordinary  vice,  bodily  or  mental, 
which  the  New  Testament  does  not  allude  to  as  more  or 
less  prevailing  in  the  Christian  society  of  that  day.  They 
are  Christians  of  the  days  of  the  Apostles  who  are  de¬ 
scribed  as  “  unruly  and  vain  talkers  and  deceivers,”1  acting 
from  the  love  of  “ filthy  lucre;”  “having  their  mind  and 
conscience  defiled,”  professing  that  they  know  God,  but 
in  works  denying  him,  “being  abominable  and  disobedient, 

1  Titus  i.  10. 


Theory  of  Development . 


5i 


and  unto  every  good  work  reprobate.”  Those  Christians 
could  hardly  be  contemplated  as  sinless  about  whom  the 
memento  was  given,  “  the  Cretians  are  alway  liars,  evil 
beasts,  slow  bellies,”  with  the  addition,  “  this  witness  is 
true,  therefore  rebuke  them  sharply.”  The  existence  of 
“ rioters,”  “drunkards,”  “brawlers,”  “strikers,”  “self-willed” 
and  passionate  persons  in  the  Church  of  that  day  was 
certainly  distinctly  contemplated  in  that  direction  which 
provided  that  a  bishop  should  not  be  chosen  out  of  such 
a  class.  A  very  far  from  perfect  state  of  the  Christian 
temper  was  certainly  contemplated  in  those  Christians 
who,  according  to  their  condition  or  sex,  were  to  be 
specially  exhorted  “  not  to  purloin  ”  from  their  masters, 
not  to  be  “false  accusers  and  slanderers,”  not  to  be 
“  gadders  about,”  not  to  be  “disobedient  to  their  husbands.” 
The  men  of  the  Church  described  in  the  New  Testament 
appear  to  have  exhibited  amongst  them  very  obviously 
and  definitely  the  common  faults  of  men  ;  intemperance  in 
eating  and  drinking,  violence,  covetousness,  envy,  pride 
and  boastfulness,  over-respect  to  worldly  rank  and  station  : 
the  women  to  have  exhibited  among  them  the  common 
faults  of  women,  those  “  of  being  idle,  wandering  about 
from  house  to  house,  tattlers,  busy-bodies,  speaking  things 
which  they  ought  not.”  The  Christian  Church  of  that 
day,  as  the  Christian  Church  of  a  later  age,  had  “  spots  in 
its  feasts  of  charity,”  and  displayed  as  coarse  a  mixture  of 
bad  and  good,  in  the  very  sanctuary  of  religious  fellow¬ 
ship,  as  it  ever  did  afterwards.  “  Filthy  dreamers  among 
them  despised  dominion,  defiled  the  flesh,  turned  grace 
into  lasciviousness,  spoke  evil  of  the  things  which  they 
knew  not,  and  what  they  knew  naturally  as  brute  beasts, 
in  those  things  corrupted  themselves.”1  Men  externally 
Christians  “  went  after  the  way  of  Cain,  ran  greedily 

1  Jude  8. 


52 


Theory  of  Development. 


after  the  error  of  Balaam,  perished  in  the  gainsaying  of 
Core/’  They  were  “murmurers,  complainers,  walking 
after  their  own  lusts,  speaking  great  swelling  words,  having 
men’s  persons  in  admiration  because  of  advantage.” 
External  Christians  were  “  mockers,”  “  sensual  ”  men, 
“  feeding  themselves  without  fear  were  “  clouds  without 
water  carried  about  of  winds  ;  trees  whose  fruit  withereth, 
without  fruit,  twice  dead,  plucked  up  by  the  roots  ;  raging 
waves  of  the  sea  foaming  out  their  own  shame,  wandering 
stars  to  whom  is  reserved  the  blackness  of  darkness  for 
ever.”  It  was  in  days  in  which  all  the  above  descriptions 
had  their  application,  that  Mr.  Newman  says,  “  Christians 
were  contemplated  as  sinless and  that  the  actual  state 
of  the  Church,  small  and  holy,  did  not  suggest  a  purgatory, 
whereas  afterwards,  “  when  the  nations  were  converted 
and  offences  abounded,”  it  did.  “  Christians  did  not 
recognise  a  purgatory  as  a  part  of  the  dispensation  till 
the  world  had  flowed  into  the  Church,  and  a  habit  of 
corruption  had  been  superinduced.”  We  see  no  essential 
distinction  in  the  actual  moral  condition  of  the  Christian 
society  at  the  former  and  in  the  latter  period ;  none  to 
suggest  to  Christian  minds  at  one  age  a  purgatory  as 
necessary,  while  it  precludes  it  at  the  other  as  not 
wanted.  And  the  facts  of  the  case  appear  simply  to 
refute  the  view  taken  of  them,  and  the  argument  which 
is  built  upon  it. 

We  will  add  that  it  is  not  the  omission  in  Scripture 
with  which  we  are  concerned,  so  much  as  a  positive 
counter-tone.  With  the  Christian  Church,  a  mixed  body 
around  them,  and  containing  all  the  moral  shades  and 
inconsistencies,  all  the  unformed,  half-formed  characters, 
all  the  alloy  and  general  imperfection  which  it  did  after¬ 
ward,  Apostles  preached  the  doctrine  that  “  the  dead 
which  die  in  the  Lord  rest  from  their  labours.”  An 


T heory  o f  Dev  el op  men  t. 


53 


arguer  may  doubtless  insist  on  being  told  accurately  who 
were  “  the  dead  which  died  in  the  Lord,”  and  assert  that 
it  meant  some  true  believers,  and  not  others ;  but  we  do 
not  see  how  any  fair  mind  can  deny  that  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  as  a  whole,  throws  a  peaceful  and  tranquil  character 
over  the  collective  state  of  good  Christian  souls  departed, 
and  that  the  established  doctrine  of  Purgatory  throws  a 
directly  contrary  one ;  and  that,  without  insisting  on  the 
universally  traditionary  meaning  given  to  the  “  Paradise  ” 
and  “  AbrahanTs  bosom  ”  of  the  Gospels,  the  intermediate 
state  to  which  good  souls  went  after  death  has  a  paradisal 
character  in  inspired  and  primitive,  and  an  infernal  one 
in  later  theology. 

We  come  to  another  and  much  more  formidable  instance 
of  the  asserted  “  logical  sequency  ”  in  development. 

The  whole  extreme  cultus  of  the  Virgin  Mary, — involv¬ 
ing  all  the  prerogatives,  distinctions,  powers,  and  attri¬ 
butes  assigned  to  her  in  the  practical  Eoman  system,  and 
in  the  works  of  those  Divines  who  have  gone  the  greatest 
lengths  on  this  subject, — is  made  the  logical  result  of  the 
fact  that  she  was,  in  His  human  nature,  the  mother  of 
our  Lord.  We  are  referred  to  the  word  Theotocos  as  the 
voucher  and  proof  of  the  whole.  The  relationship  of 
mother  to  God  as  man,  so  mysteriously  and  awfully  near 
to  Him  as  man,  although  infinitely  distant  from  Him  as 
God,  has  appeared  to  include,  by  logical  sequence,  ratify¬ 
ing  itself  step  by  step,  to  some  minds,  as  they  dwelt  in 
long  speculative  contemplation  on  that  one  idea,  the 
whole  formal  and  distinct  “  place  of  St.  Mary  in  the 
economy  of  Grace,”  which  we  see  assigned  to  her.  The 
idea — mother  of  God — was  entered  into,  pursued,  brought 
out ;  it  seemed  mathematically  to  contain,  to  the  religious 
reasoner,  such  further  truths  about  her.  Par  be  it  from 
us,  as  members  of  the  English  Church,  to  deny  the  incom- 


54 


Theory  of  Development, 


municable  dignity  bestowed  upon  the  Blessed  Virgin  in 
that  mysterious  relationship.  We  write  now’  under  the 
painful  conviction  that  she  has  been,  in  our  popular 
’  theology,  abridged  of  that  honour  which  is  due  to  her, 
though  how  far  the  known  principles  of  reaction  may 
operate  or  not,  as  our  excuse,  we  do  not  now  inquire. 
But  nevertheless  when  such  inferences  as  we  are  speaking 
of  are  said  to  be  logically  drawn  from  the  simple  original 
fact  of  the  relationship,  the  question  must  be  asked  how 
we  can  argue  certainly  from  data  so  mysterious  and 
incomprehensible.  We  can  express  the  truth  indeed 
that  the  blessed  Mary  was  the  Mother  of  God,  as  we  can 
express  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  in  all  modes  and  forms 
which  amount  but  to  the  expression  of  that  truth ;  and 
the  truth  itself  invests  her  with  an  incommunicable 
dignity.  But  when  the  reasoner  goes  further  and  says — 
She  was  the  mother  of  our  Lord ;  therefore  she  was  born 
without  original  sin,  in  the  first  place ;  therefore  she  was 
the  “  created  idea  in  the  making  of  the  world/’1  in  the 
second  place  ;  therefore  she  is  the  one  channel  through 
which  all  grace  flows,  in  the  third  place ;  it  is  right  to 
ask,  Why  ?  How  do  these  second  truths  follow  necessarily 
from  the  first  ?  Show,  for  example,  that  it  inevitably 
follows,  from  her  being  the  Theotocos,  that  her  own  con¬ 
ception  was  immaculate  ?  “  Can  a  clean  thing  come 

from  an  unclean/’  we  are  told.  But  it  is  evident  that  on 
such  an  application  of  Scripture  as  this,  the  mother  of 
the  Virgin  must  be  immaculate,  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  Virgin  herself  was ;  and  so  the  stream  of  original  sin 
is  driven  backward  till  no  place  is  left  wdiere  it  ever 
could  have  existed.  The  truth  is,  we  are  not  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  mystery  of  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  to  be  drawing  such  conclusions  from  it.  Show  us 
indeed,  as  we  said  before,  an  infallible  logician,  and  we 

1  Quoted  from  Segneri,  p.  44. 


Theory  of  Development. 


55 


will  accept  whatever  his  logic  extracts.  But  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  the  mere  consecutiveness  which  human 
logic  sees  in  this  or  that  line  of  thought  and  process  of 
evolution,  can  be  appealed  to  as  proof  of  a  doctrine. 

Without  dwelling,  however,  further  on  such  general 
lines  of  argument,  we  will  proceed  at  once  to  the  examina¬ 
tion  of  the  particular  argumentative  position  which  Mr. 
Newman  has  put  forward  on  this  subject.  Mr.  Newman 
has  discovered, — discovered  we  say,  because  we  are  not 
aware  that  any  one  has  maintained  it  before  him, — a  new 
argumentative  position  for  the  extreme  cultus  of  the 
Virgin ; — a  position,  moreover,  which  does  not  stop  at  a 
simple  defence  of  the  existing  doctrine,  but  aims  distinctly 
at  heightening  it,  and  giving  new  and  indefinite  space 
for  it  to  expand  in.  Exerting  the  privilege  of  genius, 
Mr.  Newman  does  not  enter  the  Boman  Church  as  a 
simple  pupil  and  follower.  He  enters  magisterially.  He 
surveys  her  with  the  eye  of  a  teacher.  He  tells  her  new 
truth.  He  commences  a  doctrinal  rise  in  her ;  he  takes 
her  by  the  hand,  and  lifts  her  up  a  whole  step,  in  system 
and  idea,  on  her  very  boldest  ground  of  development. 
He  will  not  allow  her  to  stand  still  even  there,  and  rest 
contented  with  her  advances.  “  Catholicity,”  he  says 
emphatically,  “  does  not  sleep ;  it  is  not  stationary  even 
now.”1  He  points  out,  and  institutes  accordingly,  a  new 
doctrinal  movement  within  the  Roman  pale,  before  he  is 
himself  in  it ;  and  he  does  not  permit  her  to  “  be  stationary 
even  now,”  but  gives  her  a  distinct  move  forward  in 
what  occupies  so  bold  and  extreme  a  place  in  her  system 
as  her  view  of  the  Virgin  Mary. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  us  here  to  transcribe  all  the 
authorised  titles  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in  the  Roman 
Church,  or  describe  again  what  has  been  so  often  described, 
the  whole  practical  and  authorised  idea  of  the  Virgin’s 


56 


Theory  of  Development. 


position,  with  the  cultus  attached  to  it,  and  all  the  rami¬ 
fications  of  the  cultus,  the  nature  of  the  litanies  and 
prayers  addressed  to  her,  and  other  expressions  of  the 
general  idea.  The  reader  may  easily  recall  them,  and 
suppose  them  put  down  here. 

Now  Mr.  Newman  seems  to  himself  to  see  that  if  the 
Church  of  Lome  goes  so  far  as  this  in  her  view  of  the 
Virgin,  she  ought  to  go  farther ;  and  that  all  those  prero¬ 
gatives  and  powers  assigned  to  her  want  some  one  com¬ 
prehensive  basis  to  stand  on,  some  one  hypothesis  to 
systematise  and  consolidate  them.  He  accordingly  pro¬ 
vides  one,  and  takes  care  that  it  is  sufficiently  ample. 
The  early  controversies  on  the  subject  of  the  Divinity  of 
our  Lord  led,  as  an  inevitable  result,  the  opposers  of  that 
doctrine  into  a  very  difficult  position.  Overwhelmed  by 
the  force  of  universal  testimony  and  tradition,  which 
spoke  to  the  fact  of  the  revelation  of  that  doctrine,  and 
affirmed  it  to  have  been  distinctly  and  uninterruptedly 
handed  down  from  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  the  Arians 
wanted  to  deny  the  doctrine,  if  we  may  so  speak,  as  little 
as  they  could, — as  little,  that  is,  as  was  consistent  with 
their  own  logical  hypothesis  on  the  subject.  They  would 
not  acknowledge  our  Lord  to  be  God ;  but,  that  provided 
against,  they  made  His  being,  with  an  anxious  and 
emulous  subtlety,  as  near  that  of  absolute  Godhead  as  it 
was  possible  for  the  speculative  faculty  to  conceive. 
They  raised  Him  to  the  very  highest  and  farthest  point 
of  secondary  divinity ; — “  they  did  all  but  confess,”  says 
Mr.  Newman,  “that  He  was  the  Almighty.”1  First  of  all 
they  said  He  was  God  :  He  was  ifKppr]^  @eo?,  full  and 
perfect  God  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  tried  to  make  secondary 
Divinity  more  than  secondary,  and  lift  it  above  itself  in 
the  instance  of  our  Lord.  They  proceeded  :  He  existed 


Theory  of  Development. 


57 


before  all  worlds ;  He  was  the  actual  Creator  of  the 
universe ;  the  God  of  the  Evangelical  Covenant ;  the 
Mediator  between  God  and  man.  He  was,  as  such,  a 
legitimate  object  of  Christian  worship.  This  position  the 
Arians  gave  our  Lord.  This  position  Mr.  Newman  claims 
for  the  Virgin  Mary.  “The  Arian  controversy/’  he  says, 
“  opened  a  question  which  it  did  not  settle.  It  discovered 
a  new  sphere,  if  we  may  so  speak,  in  the  realms  of  light, 
to  which  the  Church  had  not  yet  assigned  its  inhabitant. 
Arianism  had  admitted  that  our  Lord  was  both  the  God 
of  the  Evangelical  Covenant  and  the  actual  Creator  of  the 
universe ;  but  even  this  was  not  enough,  because  it  did 
not  confess  Him  to  be  the  One,  Everlasting,  Infinite, 
Supreme  Being,  but  to  be  made  by  Him.  It  was  not 
enough,  with  that  heresy,  to  proclaim  Him  to  be  begotten 
ineffably1  before  all  worlds;  not  enough  to  place  Him 
high  above  all  creatures  as  the  type  of  all  the  works  of 
God’s  hands ;  not  enough  to  make  Him  the  Lord  of  His 
saints,  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  the  Object 
of  worship,  the  Image  of  the  Father :  not  enough,  because 
it  was  not  all,  and  between  all,  and  anything  short  of  all, 
— there  was  an  infinite  interval.  The  highest  of  creatures 
is  levelled  with  the  lowest,  in  comparison  of  the  One 
Creator  Himself.  That  is,  the  Mcene  Council  recognised 
the  eventful  principle,  that  while  we  believe  and  profess 
anything  to  be  a  creature,  such  a  being  is  really  no  God 
to  us,  though  honoured  by  us  with  whatever  high  titles, 
and  with  whatever  homage.  Arius,  or  Asterius,  did  all 
but  confess  that  Christ  was  the  Almighty ;  they  said 
much  more  than  St.  Bernard  or  St.  Alphonso  have  since 
said  of  St.  Mary ;  yet  they  left  Him  a  creature,  and  were 

1  In  the  edition  of  1878,  for  the  words  “begotten  ineffably,”  we 
read  “having  an  ineffable  origin  for  “  Lord  of  His  saints,”  “  King 
of  all  saints;”  for  “  Mediator  between  God  and  Man,”  “  the  Inter¬ 
cessor  for  man.  with  Ged.” — Page  143. 


58 


Theory  of  Development. 


found  wanting.  Thus  there  was  ' a  wonder  in  heaven  :  ’ 
a  throne  was  seen,  far  above  all  created  powers,  media¬ 
torial,  intercessory ;  a  title  archetypal ;  a  crown  bright 
as  the  morning  star;  a  glory  issuing  from  the  Eternal 
Throne ;  robes  pure  as  the  heavens ;  and  a  sceptre  over 
all ;  and  who  was  the  predestined  heir  of  that  Majesty  ? 
Who  was  that  Wisdom,  and  what  was  her  name,  'the 
Mother  of  fair  love,  and  fear,  and  holy  hope  ’ — '  exalted 
like  a  palm-tree  in  Engaddi,  and  a  rose  plant  in  Jericho 
‘  created  from  the  beginning  before  the  world/  in  God’s 
counsels,  and  'in  Jerusalem  was  her  power?’  The  vision 
is  found  in  the  Apocalypse, — 'a  Woman  clothed  with  the 
sun,  and  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and  upon  her  head  a 
crown  of  twelve  stars.’”1  The  conclusion  of  the  argument 
is  that  St.  Mary  is  truly  that  being  which  the  Arians 
falsely  maintained  our  Lord  to  be.  She  "  supplies  the 
subject  of  that  august  proposition  of  which  Arianism  pro¬ 
vided  the  predicate  :”2 — "As  containing  all  created  per¬ 
fection,  she  has  all  those  attributes,  which,  as  noticed 
above,  the  Arians  and  other  heretics  applied  to  our  Lord.”3 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  what  does  Mr.  Newman  mean 
here  ?  The  attributes  which  he  noticed  above  as  those 
which  the  Arians  applied  to  our  Lord,  were,  that  He  was 
"begotten  before  the  world;”  that  He  was  "  the  actual 
Creator  of  the  universe;”  that  He  was  "the  Mediator 
between  God  and  man ;”  and  others.  Does  he  mean  to 
say  that  the  Virgin  Mary  was  "begotten  before  the 
worlds  ;  ”  that  the  Virgin  Mary  was  "  the  actual  Creator 
of  the  universe  ?”  Without  a  wish  to  attribute  to  him 
such  ideas,  we  must  at  any  rate  be  permitted  to  say,  that 
if  he  does  not  mean  these,  his  language  is  loose,  and  is 
not  what  language  should  be  on  such  an  awful  subject. 
We  are  told,  generally,  that  the  Virgin  supplies  the  sub- 

1  First  Edition,  p.  405.  2  Ibid.  p.  407.  3  Page  444. 


59 


Theory  of  Development. 


ject  of  that  august  proposition  of  which  “  Arianism  pro¬ 
vided  the  predicate.”  We  are  told,  particularly,  that  “  as 
containing  all  created  perfection,  she  has  all  those  attri¬ 
butes  which  the  Arians  applied  to  our  Lord.”  And  the 
attributes  here  referred  to  are  those  of  “  being  begotten 
before  the  worlds,”  being  “the  actual  Creator  of  the 
universe,”  being  “  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man.” 
Nor  does  “as  containing  all  created  perfection”  qualify, 
but  only  explain  the  application  of  them.  Interpreting 
Mr.  Newman  grammatically  here,  we  cannot  understand 
him  but  as  asserting  that  the  Virgin  Mary  was  “  begotten 
before  the  worlds,”  was  “  the  actual  Creator  of  the  uni¬ 
verse,”  was  “the  Mediator  between  God  and  man.”1  If 
Mr.  Newman  uses  the  terms  “  mere  child  of  Adam,”  and 
“  mere  human  being,”  of  the  Virgin,  in  one  part  of  his 
book,  we  will  not  charge  him  with  the  full  grammatical 
meaning  of  another.  But  the  question  still  remains,  and 
is  not  answered — What  is  his  meaning  ?  Does  he  confine 
himself  to  the  general  animus  of  the  Arian  proposition, 
which  was  to  make  our  Lord  simply  and  shortly  all  but 
God  ?  The  general  proposition,  however,  does  not  omit 
the  fact  of,  but  only  the  mention  of,  the  particulars. 
Does  he  mean  that  the  position  of  the  Virgin  Mary  is 
equal,  and  tantamount  in  dignity,  to  the  position  of  the 
Arian  “  perfect  God,”  without  being  the  same  ?  But  this 
would  be  a  vague  difference ;  and,  moreover,  the  whole 
position  of  the  Arian  Demiurge  was  expressed  with  the 
view  to  quantity — greatest  imaginable  quantity  of  dignity 
not  Divine  :  if  it  is  to  be  adequately  represented  then,  it 
must  be  represented  as  it  was  expressed,  and  with  those 
attributes  by  which  it  was.  To  express  an  equal  position 
to  it  there  must  be  the  same  means  used  to  express  it. 
We  are  not,  however,  strictly  speaking,  concerned  with 

1  See  ante ,  p.  57,  note. 


6o 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  process  by  which  Mr.  Newman  enables  himself  to 
hold  such  a  view.  It  is  enough  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  does  hold  it ;  that,  whatever  he  may  do  with  obstacles 
to  it,  he  holds,  and  holds  directly  and  categorically,  the 
view  that  the  Virgin  Mary  “  supplies  the  subject  of 
that  august  proposition  of  which  Arianism  provided  the 
predicate  ;  ”  that  she  is  what  the  Arians  affirmed  the 
Second  Person  in  the  Trinity  to  be. 

To  proceed  then  :  what  is  the  proof  which  Mr.  New¬ 
man  gives  of  the  Arian  idea  being  thus  fulfilled  in  the 
person  of  the  Virgin  ?  The  answer  is,  none  at  all,  except 
the  facts  that  Arianism  existed,  and  that  the  cultus  of 
the  Virgin  does.  The  rest  is  supplied  by  assumption. 
Let  us  follow  him.  First  in  order  there  is  the  fact  that 
the  Arians,  in  depriving  our  Lord  of  His  divinity,  made 
Him  as  divine  as  they  could,  consistent  with  so  depriving 
Him  ;  and  that  thus  a  certain  idea  was  arrived  at,  viz., 
the  Arian  idea  of  secondary  Divinity.  He  then  proceeds  : 
“  Thus  there  was  a  wonder  in  heaven  ;  a  throne  was  seen 
far  above  all  created  powers,  mediatorial,  intercessory ;  a 
title  archetypal;  a  crown  bright  as  the  morning  star;  a  glory 
issuing  from  the  eternal  throne;  robes  pure  as  the  heavens; 
and  a  sceptre  over  all.  And  who  was  the  predestined  heir  of 
this  great  Majesty  ?  ”  He  proceeds,  that  is,  to  say  that 
this  Arian  idea  demanded  fulfilment ;  and  asks,  Who  was 
to  fulfil  it  ?  To  which  the  answer  follows,  no  one  but 
the  Virgin.  The  Arians  imagined  a  position.  It  was 
necessary  that  that  position  should  be  impersonated.  As 
our  Lord  was  not  the  impersonator  of  it,  some  one  else 
must  be ;  and  no  one  comes  before  us  so  suited  for  it  as 
the  Virgin  Mary. 

We  must  be  allowed  to  pause,  in  some  degree  of 
wonder,  at  a  train  of  reasoning  like  this,  exhibiting  such 
largeness,  we  must  even  say,  wildness  of  assumption. 


Theory  of  Development.  61 

It  is  assumed  that  the  Arian  idea  must  be  realised,  must 
he  fulfilled,  must  be  verified  in  some  personage  or  other. 
Why  ?  Are  all  conceptions,  as  such,  true  ones  ?  Are  all 
ideas,  as  such,  verified  by  facts  ?  If  not,  why  must  the 
Arian  idea  of  our  Lord  needs  he  verified  ?  What  reason 
is  there  to  be  on  the  look-out  for  any  personage  at  all 
to  substantiate  it  ?  Why  trouble  ourselves  to  find  a 
subject  for  an  Arian  predicate  ?  What  is  there  to  pre¬ 
vent  us  from  considering  the  whole  idea  of  those  heretics, 
subject,  predicate,  and  all,  as  a  falsehood  and  a  nullity, 
tlieir  idea,  and  nothing  more  ?  Certainly,  there  may  be 
such  a  case  as  an  idea  strongly  suggesting  its  own  fulfil¬ 
ment  ;  but  in  such  a  case  the  idea  must  show  some 
peculiar  tokens  of  truth,  genuineness,  authoritativeness, 
and  even  then  the  argument  is  a  hazardous  one.  But  to 
say  that  because  a  profane  heresy  raises  an  idea,  that 
therefore  orthodox  Christians  are  bound  to  discover  a 
verification  of  it,  and  that  if  Arianism  conceives  a  predi¬ 
cate,  the  Church  must  supply  the  subject — How  can  this 
be  reasonable  ?  Let  those  who  conceived  the  one  dis¬ 
cover  the  other  if  they  can,  and  let  them  verify  their 
own  conception  ;  but  they  are  responsible  for  it,  and  not 
others.  If  the  Arian  conception  remain  the  Arian  con¬ 
ception,  and  nothing  more  ;  if  an  idea  in  this  case  has  no 
fulfilment,  a  predicate  no  subject ;  if  a  whole  speculation 
issues  in  hollowness,  vacancy,  and  delusion,  it  is  no  more 
than  what  has  happened  to  the  conceptions  of  a  hundred 
other  sects,  and  is  happening  to  ten  thousand  creations  of 
the  human  brain  every  day. 

We  must  add,  that  ifjanything  can  increase  the  strange¬ 
ness  of  such  an  assumption,  it  is  the  absolutely  matter- 
of-course  way  in  which  it  is  made.  It  is  not  men¬ 
tioned,  it  does  not  appear  ;  it  simply  lies  underneath  the 
argument,  is  simply  supposed,  and  gone  upon,  as  any 


62 


Theory  of  Development. 


self-evident  principle  is  in  ordinary  reasoning.  “  The 
Arian  controversy  opened  a  question  which  it  did  not 
settle.”  He  means  that  the  Arians  put  forth  a  position, 
and  that  the  Church  did  not  decide  who  occupied  it. 
Observe  the  implied  assumption,  as  if  it  was  self- 
evidently  necessary  that  it  should  be  occupied.  “  Arian- 
ism  discovered  a  new  sphere  in  the  realms  of  light,  to 
which  the  Church  had  not  yet  assigned  its  inhabitant.” 
The  same  implied  assumption  again,  as  if  it  were  self- 
evidently  necessary  that  it  should  have  its  inhabitant. 
Arianism  gave  its  “  throne  and  sceptre  over  all ;  and  who 
was  the  predestined  heir  of  that  Majesty?”  The  same 
implied  assumption  again,  as  if  it  were  self-evidently 
necessary  that  there  should  be  an  heir. 

The  historical  view  is  drawn  up  in  a  somewhat  similar 
style  to  the  argumentative.  The  drawer-up  describes  an 
easy,  a  natural,  an  inevitable  succession  of  ideas  on  the 
subject.  He  exhibits  the  Church  as  going  on  in  one  con¬ 
tinuous  line  of  thought,  and  forming  in  two  grand  suc¬ 
cessive  stages  a  doctrinal  creation  ;  first,  embracing  an 
ideal  position,  and  then  proceeding  in  due  course  to  im¬ 
personate  it.  “  There  was  in  the  first  ages  no  public  or 
ecclesiastical  recognition  of  the  place  which  St.  Mary 
holds  in  the  economy  of  grace  ;  this  was  reserved  for  the 
fifth  century,  as  the  definition  of  our  Lord’s  proper 
Divinity  had  been  the  work  of  the  fourth.  There  was  a 
controversy  contemporary  with  those  I  have  already  men¬ 
tioned,  I  mean  the  Nestorian,  which  brought  out  the  com¬ 
plement  of  the  development.  ...  In  order  to  do  honour 
to  Christ,  in  order  to  defend  the  true  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation,  in  order  to  secure  a  right  faith  in  the  man¬ 
hood  of  the  Eternal  Son,  the  Council  of  Ephesus  deter¬ 
mined  the  Blessed  Virgin  to  be  the  Mother  of  God.  Thus 
all  the  heresies  of  that  day,  though  opposite  to  each  other, 


Theory  of  Development.  63 

tended  in  a  most  wonderful  way  to  her  exaltation  ;  and 
the  School  of  Antioch,  the  fountain  of  primitive  ration¬ 
alism,  led  the  Church  to  lay  down,  first,  the  conceivable 
greatness  of  a  creature,  and  then  the  incommunicable 
dignity  of  St.  Mary.”1  We  have  here  an  illustration  of 
what  may  be  effected  by  the  instrumentality  of  partial 
aspects  and  points  of  view.  The  writer  fixes  an  aspect  on 
the  Arian  controversy  ; — the  Church  took  cognisance  then 
of  the  idea  of  a  secondary  Divinity.  He  fixes  an  aspect 
on  the  Nestorian  controversy  ; — the  Church  decided  then 
that  a  certain  high  title  was  due  to  the  Virgin  Mary  ; 
and  these  two  put  together  are  the  Church's  successive 
steps  of  predicate  and  subject.  Now  what  are  the  facts 
of  the  case  on  which  these  aspects  are  fixed  ?  The 
Church  condemned  the  Arians  for  attributing  to  our  Lord 
only  a  secondary  Divinity  :  the  Church  condemned  the 
Nestorians  for  making  God  and  man  in  the  Incarnation 
two  persons.  On  this  latter  point  we  will  speak  more  at 
length. 

It  is  true  then  that  the  Virgin  was  declared  to  be  the 
Theotocos  at  the  Council  of  Ephesus  ;  but  that  title  had 
final  reference  in  its  bestowal,  not  to  her,  but  to  our  Lord. 
The  Council  of  Ephesus  pronounced  our  Lord  to  be  One 
Person.  It  necessarily  followed  hence  that  the  Virgin 
Mary,  being  the  mother  of  that  One  Person,  was  the 
mother  of  God ;  but  the  assertion  of  our  Lord’s  one 
personality  was  the  end  for  which  the  Council  of  Ephesus 
met ;  and  the  term  Theotocos  was  introduced  sub¬ 
ordinate!}’,  as  the  sign  of  that  one  personality.  The 
Council  had  not  the  rank  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  but  the 
truth  of  the  Incarnation  as  its  object;  and  the  word 
Theotocos  comes  down  to  us  with  this  distinctly  sub¬ 
ordinated  character  and  significance  stamped  upon  it  by 

1  Page  407. 


64 


Theory  of  Development. 


its  early  use.  It  may  be  said;  indeed,  that  it  makes  no 
difference  whether  the  Church  used  the  word  primarily  or 
subordinately,  so  long  as  the  word  was  used  as  a  fact ;  and 
that  the  rank  of  the  Virgin  is  a  result  from  the  word  itself, 
with  whatever  view  employed.  But  it  is  undeniable 
that  the  original  motive  for  the  word  necessarily  presents 
it  to  the  mind,  with  a  certain  connection,  direction,  and 
leaning  attached  to  it.  Between  being  used  for  one  pur¬ 
pose,  and  being  used  for  another,  there  is  unquestionably 
a  difference  ;  and  that  difference  has  an  inevitable  bearing 
upon  the  word  itself.  Mr.  Newman,  at  any  rate,  seems 
to  acknowledge  this  ;  for  he  studiously  moulds  his  whole 
historical  statement  so  as  to  leave  an  impression  on  the 
reader  of  the  rank,  as  such,  of  the  Virgin  being  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  the  Church’s  deliberations.  Even  the  construction 
of  a  sentence,  aiding  as  it  does  a  general  bias  in  this  direc¬ 
tion,  is  symptomatic.  “  In  order  to  do  honour  to  Christ, 
in  order  to  defend  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  in 
order  to  secure  a  right  faith  in  the  manhood  of  the 
Eternal  Son,  the  Council  of  Ephesus  determined  the 
Blessed  Virgin  to  be  the  Mother  of  God.”  The  reader 
will  observe  that  the  sentence  leads  up  to  the  Virgin’s 
title  as  to  a  climax ;  and  at  the  very  time  that  a  state¬ 
ment  recognises  its  subordinateness,  a  certain  form  and 
arrangement  makes  it  a  principal.  A  simple  transposi¬ 
tion  would  considerably  alter  the  effect : — “  The  Council 
of  Ephesus  determined  the  Blessed  Virgin  to  be  the 
Mother  of  God  in  order  to  do  honour  to  Christ,  in  order 
to,”  etc.  etc.  We  instance  this  to  show  what  a  very  little 
tells  in  this  way.  The  whole  statement  of  the  case  is 
moulded  with  the  same  view ;  in  order  to  produce,  viz.,  a 
general  impression  different  from  what  the  facts  of  the 
case  themselves  give,  an  impression  of  the  Virgin’s  per¬ 
sonal  rank  as  the  primary  subject  of,  her  personal 


Theory  of  Development. 


6^ 


elevation  as  the  crowning  work  of,  the  Ephesian 
Council. 

Such  are  the  two  proceedings  of  the  Church  on  which 
Mr.  Newman  has  to  build.  And  he  builds  thus.  Out  of 
the  Arian  idea  of  our  Lord,  and  its  condemnation,  he 
chooses  the  idea  itself  apart  from  our  Lord,  and  apart 
from  its  condemnation,  and  so  gets  an  idea  of  secondary 
Divinity  simply  taken  cognisance  of  by  the  Church.® 
Out  of  the  Nestorian  controversy  again  he  selects  the 
Virgins  title  apart  from  the  doctrine  to  which  it  was 
subordinated.  Thus,  on  his  view,  the  Church  first  takes 
cognisance  of  a  position  of  secondary  Divinity,  and  then 
provides  formally  an  occupant  for  it.  But  of  this  argu¬ 
mentative  proof  by  a  succession  of  aspects,  it  must  be 
remarked  that  that  whole  mode  of  arguing  cannot  be 
considered  conclusive  which  goes  upon  arbitrarily  selected 
abstractions  from  facts,  and  not  from  the  actual  facts 
themselves.  An  arguer  may  abstract  one  aspect,  but 
all  the  others  which  he  does  not  abstract  still  remain ; 
and  it  will  continually  happen  that  one  aspect  of  the 
selfsame  fact  will  wholly  negative  another  for  a  given 
argumentative  purpose.  Mr.  Newman  holds  up  the 
Arian  idea,  in  its  aspect  as  taken  cognisance  of  by  the 
Church  :  it  certainly  has  that  aspect ;  but  it  was  taken 
cognisance  of  only  as  the  idea  of  an  heretical  party ;  and 
that  is  another  aspect.  Mr.  Newman  takes  the  former 
and  omits  the  latter ;  and  the  Arian  hypothesis  accord¬ 
ingly  appears,  in  his  view,  as  the  sacred  and  awful  pro¬ 
perty  of  the  Church  from  the  first,  insisted  upon,  pursued, 
and  in  time  furnished  with  its  occupant. 

Such  is  Mr.  Newman’s  positive  use  of  the  Arian 
hypothesis,  as  brought  to  bear  on  the  cultus  of  the  Virgin  : 
but  he  also  uses  it  negatively,  and  as  a  defensive  argument, 
for  that  cultus.  The  Arians  were  denounced  by  the 

E 


66 


Theory  of  Development. 


Church  as  disbelievers  in  our  Lord’s  divinity,  notwith¬ 
standing  their  high  and  g'wcm-deifying  hypothesis  con¬ 
cerning  Him.  Upon  that  fact  the  general  principle  is 
raised,  that  no  one  who  regards  any  being  as  at  all  short 
of  the  One  and  Supreme  God,  can  be  charged  with  regard¬ 
ing  that  being  as  God,  or  be  charged,  therefore,  with 
idolatry  with  respect  to  such  a  being.  “  Between  all 
and  anything  short  of  all  there  is  an  infinite  interval.” 
“  The  highest  of  creatures  is  levelled  with  the  lowest  in 
comparison  of  the  One  Creator  Himself.  The  Nicene 
Council  recognised  the  eventful  principle,  that  while  we 
believe  and  profess  any  being  to  be  a  creature,  such  a 
being  is  really  no  God  to  us,  though  honoured  by  us 
with  whatever  high  titles,  and  with  whatever  homage. 
Arius,  or  Asterius,  did  all  but  confess  that  Christ  was  the 
Almighty ;  they  said  much  more  than  St.  Bernard  or  St. 
Alphonso  have  since  said  of  St.  Mary,  yet  they  left  Him 
a  creature,  and  were  found  wanting.”  He  concludes — 
“  The  votaries  of  St.  Mary  do  not  exceed  the  true  faith, 
unless  the  blasphemers  of  her  Son  come  up  to  it.  The 
Church  of  Borne  is  not  idolatrous,  unless  Arianism  is 
orthodoxy.” 1 

How,  without  at  all  professing  to  be  of  that  number  who 
throw  a  whole-length  charge  of  idolatry  upon  the  Boman 
Church,  we  see  an  argument  here  before  us,  and  we  would 
deal  with  it  as  an  argument.  The  argument,  then,  is 
based  on  a  particular  implied  definition  of  idolatry ; 
idolatry  being  considered  to  mean  the  regarding  of  a 
being  as  the  One  and  Supreme  God  who  is  not  such,  and 
nothing  short  of  such  regard  being  considered  to  be 
idolatry.  This  definition,  we  must  next  remark,  the 
writer  gets  from  his  own  mind,  and  not  from  the  Nicene 
Council.  The  Nicene  Council  asserts  that  a  being  who 

1  Page  40G. 


Theory  of  Development. 


67 


is  not  the  One  Supreme  God,  is  not  God, — God  being  the 
One  and  Supreme  God.  Mr.  Newman  turns  this  asser¬ 
tion  into  the  assertion  that  “  such  a  being  can  be  really 
no  God  to  us.”  Now,  if  by  the  latter  phrase  Mr.  Newman 
means  simply,  “  not  regarded  as  the  One  and  Supreme 
God  by  us/’  in  that  sense  his  assertion  is  coincident 
with  that  of  the  Nicene  Council ;  but  it  is  not  the 
assertion  which  he  wants,  because  it  does  not  declare 
that  such  a  being  may  not  be  idolatrously  regarded  by 
us.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  intends  his  phrase  posi¬ 
tively  to  express  the  meaning  wanted,  viz.,  “  not  regarded 
idolatrously  by  us,”  in  that  sense  it  is  only  coincident 
with  the  assertion  of  the  Nicene  Council  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  the  two  meanings,  “not  regarded  as  Supreme 
God,”  and  “  not  regarded  idolatrously,”  are  the  same ; 
that  is  to  say,  on  the  supposition  that  his  definition  of 
idolatry  is  true.  He  argues  in  a  circle,  and  has  to  assert 
the  definition  on  his  own  authority  to  begin  with,  in 
order  to  prove  it  to  be  of  Nicene. 

Of  the  definition  of  idolatry,  then,  thus  assumed  in  Mr. 
Newman’s  argument,  we  must  observe  that  it  appears  to 
us  a  wholly  inadequate  and  a  practically  futile  one.  There 
is  a  look  indeed  of  irresistible  logic  about  a  train  of  reason¬ 
ing  which  runs  : — Idolatry  implies  regarding  as  God  :  no 
being  is  regarded  as  God  who  is  regarded  as  anything 
short  of  the  One  and  Supreme  God ;  therefore  the  attri¬ 
bution  of  no  kind  of  secondary  divinity  to  a  being,  even 
up  to  the  point  of  making  it  “  all  but  ”  the  One  and 
Supreme  God,  is  idolatry.  Such  an  argument  may  appear 
at  first  sight  to  bring  the  matter  to  an  immediate  point, 
and  to  the  test  of  mathematical  demonstration.  But  an 
argument  is  too  irresistible,  if  one  may  say  so,  and  defeats 
itself,  if  it  refutes  demonstrably  a  plain  and  obvious  fact. 
The  plain  and  obvious  fact,  in  the  present  instance,  is 


68 


Theory  of  Development. 


that  there  has  been  all  along,  for  ages  and  ages  in  the 
world,  an  idolatry  which  has  not  answered  to  this  defini¬ 
tion.  It  is  well  known — and  the  fact  is  largely  dwelt  on 
in  the  first  volume  of  Cud  worth — that  the  ancient  Poly¬ 
theisms,  expressly  condemned  as  idolatrous  in  the  Bible, 
acknowledged  a  subordination  in  the  sphere  of  deity,  and 
placed  over  all  the  minor  and  secondary  divinities,  not¬ 
withstanding  their  temples  and  worship,  one  God  supreme, 
the  Creator  of  all  things.1  Scripture  takes  the  broad  and 
practical  view  here,  viz.,  that  such  divinities  were  gods, 
and  that  they  received  divine  worship  ;  and  that,  however 
persons  might  intellectually  deify,  in  a  peculiarly  deifying 

1  “Let  it  be  granted,  as  you  assert,”  says  Arnobius,  “that  your 
Jupiter  and  the  Eternal  Omnipotent  God  are  one  and  the  same.  Are 
not  almost  all  your  gods  such  as  were  taken  out  from  the  rank  of  men, 
and  placed  among  the  stars  ?  Have  you  not  advanced  into  the  number 
of  your  Hivi,  Bacchus  or  Liber  for  inventing  the  use  of  the  wine,  Ceres 
of  corn,  ^Esculapius  of  herbs,  Minerva  of  the  olive,  Triptolemus  of 
the  plough,  and  Hercules  for  subduing  beasts,  thieves,  and  monsters  ?  ” 
“  The  one  and  only  God,”  says  Clemens,  “  is  worshipped  by  the  Greeks 
paganically.”  “  It  is  unquestionable,”  says  Cudworth,  “  that  the  more 
intelligent  of  the  Greekish  Pagans  did  frequently  understand  by  Zeus, 
the  supreme  unmade  Deity,  who  was  the  Maker  of  the  world,  and  all 
the  inferior  gods.”  “That  there  is  one  supreme  Deity,”  says  Lac- 
tantius,  “  both  philosophers  and  poets,  and  even  the  vulgar  worship¬ 
pers  of  the  gods  themselves,  frequently  confess.”  “The  Pagans,”  says 
St.  Augustine,  “  had  not  so  far  degenerated  as  to  have  lost  the  know¬ 
ledge  of  one  supreme  God,  from  whom  is  all  nature  whatsoever  ;  and 
they  derived  all  their  gods  from  one.”  “The  Maker  of  the  universe,” 
says  Proclus,  “is  celebrated  both  by  Plato  and  Orpheus,  and  the 
Oracles,  as  the  father  of  gods  and  men,  who  produceth  multitudes  of 
gods,  and  sends  down  souls  for  the  generation  of  men.  We  have  the 
Orphic  verses — 

.  .  .  A ibs  7 rakiv  evros  eTvxBrj 

Aldepos  evpelrjs  rjS’  ovpavov  ayXaov  v^o? 

Ildi'Tes' t’  aOavaroL  paicapes  Beoi  fj$e  Becuvcu, 

and  the  celebrated — 

Zevs  TrpcoTos  yevero,  Zevs  vararos, 

and  Homer’s — 

Tocrcroy  eyco  irep'i  r’  el  pi  Be  cov,  7 repl  t  elp dv0pd>7rcov. 


Theory  of  Development. 


69 


sense,  some  Highest  Being  distinct  from  them  all,  they 
practically  treated  the  latter  as  divine,  and  put  themselves 
in  their  whole  feelings  and  ideas  in  a  certain  practical 
position  to  them,  to  which  the  term  idolatry  was  due. 
But  upon  Mr.  Newman's  definition,  how  Scripture  will 
prove  its  charge  against  the  Polytheist,  it  is  not  easy  to 
see.  The  latter  will  immediately  present  his  belief  in  the 
One  and  Supreme  God,  as  the  infallible  security  against 
the  idolatrous  regard  of  the  subordinate  ones,  and  will 
say,  “  Between  all  and  anything  short  of  all  there  is  an 
infinite  interval ;  the  highest  of  creatures  is  levelled 
with  the  lowest  in  comparison  with  the  One  Creator 
himself." 

Or  put  such  a  summary  mode  of  reasoning  as  Mr. 
Newman’s  into  the  hands  of  the  idol- worshipper  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  appears  to  be  quite  certain  that  if 
such  logic  as  this  is  to  be  allowed  to  settle  the  question, 
the  idol-worshipper  has  a  ground  positively  irresistible,  to 
fall  back  upon  against  the  charge  of  the  prophet.  The 
prophet  charges  him  with  regarding  an  idol  which  he  has 
himself  made  as  God.  He  enters  into  the  most  vivid  and 
accurate  detail  in  describing  the  entire  and  unqualified 
way  in  which  this  worshipped  god  is  a  creature,  known  to 
be  a  creature,  actually  made  by  the  hands  of  the  wor¬ 
shipper.  The  worshipper  does  not  worship  the  matter  as 
such, — he  worships  the  form  ;  that  form  is  the  actual 
workmanship  of  the  person  who  worships  it.  “The  smith 
with  the  tongs  both  worketh  in  the  coals,  and  fashioneth 
it  with  hammers,  and  worketh  it  with  the  strength  of  his 
arms  :  yea,  he  is  hungry,  and  his  strength  faileth :  he 
drinketh  no  water,  and  is  faint.  The  carpenter  stretcheth 
out  his  rule ;  he  marketli  it  out  with  a  line  ;  he  fitteth  it 
with  planes,  and  he  marketh  it  out  with  the  compass,  and 
maketh  it  after  the  figure  of  a  man,  according  to  the 


70 


Theory  of  Development. 


beauty  of  a  man,  that  it  may  remain  in  the  house.  He 
heweth  him  clown  cedars,  and  taketh  the  cypress  and  the 
oak,  which  he  strengtheneth  for  himself  among  the  trees 
of  the  forest :  he  planteth  an  ash,  and  the  rain  doth 
nourish  it.  Then  shall  it  be  for  a  man  to  burn :  for  he 
will  take  thereof,  and  warm  himself ;  yea,  he  kindleth  it, 
and  baketli  bread ;  yea,  he  maketh  a  god,  and  worship¬ 
ped  it ;  he  maketh  it  a  graven  image,  and  falleth  down 
thereto.  He  burneth  part  thereof  in  the  fire ;  with  part 
thereof  he  eateth  flesh ;  he  roasteth  roast,  and  is  satisfied  : 
yea,  he  warmeth  himself,  and  saith,  Aha,  I  am  warm,  I 
have  seen  the  fire  :  and  the  residue  thereof  he  maketh  a 
god,  even  his  graven  image ;  he  falleth  down  unto  it,  and 
worshippeth  it,  and  prayeth  unto  it,  and  saith,  Deliver 
me  ;  for  thou  art  my  god.  They  have  not  known  nor 
understood  :  for  He  hath  shut  their  eyes,  that  they  can¬ 
not  see ;  and  their  hearts,  that  they  cannot  understand. 
And  none  considered  in  his  heart,  neither  is  there 
knowledge  nor  understanding  to  say,  I  have  burned  part 
of  it  in  the  fire  ;  yea,  also  I  have  baked  bread  upon  the 
coals  thereof;  I  have  roasted  flesh,  and  eaten  it:  and 
shall  I  make  the  residue  thereof  an  abomination  ?  shall  I 
fall  down  to  the  stock  of  a  tree?”1  How  the  idol- 
worshipper  of  the  old  world,  because  he  was  spiritually 
hardened,  was  not  therefore  intellectually  stupified.  We 
are  expressly  told  of  such,  that  “  professing  themselves 
wise,  they  became  fools.”  He  was,  in  regard  to  intel¬ 
lectual  power,  fully  as  profound  a  philosopher,  as  deep  a 
thinker,  as  subtle  a  reasoner,  as  the  worshipper  of  the 
One  Invisible  God.  Let  us  at  any  rate  suppose  him  so, 
for  it  is  all  the  same  for  the  argument.  Is  it  possible  to 
imagine  that  an  intellectual  idolater  would  not  have  had 
the  wit  to  urge  in  his  defence  that  he  did  not  worship 

1  Is.  xliv.  12. 


Theory  of  Development. 


7i 


the  idol  itself,  and  that  the  prophet  misapprehended  him. 
Could  he  not  confront  his  accuser  in  limine ,  and  before 
he  troubled  himself  with  a  single  step  in  the  line  of 
apology,  with  the  self-evident  proposition  that  it  was 
simply  impossible,  an  absurdity  in  terms,  that  he  should 
regard  a  piece  of  matter  as  God?  And  could  he  not 
retort,  with  irresistible  effect  upon  the  prophet,  those 
very  details  of  image-making  which  had  been  urged 
against  him  ?  Could  he  not  say  that  that  very  descrip¬ 
tion  only  proved  the  more  vividly  that  the  idol  was, 
because  it  must  be,  looked  upon  by  the  worshipper  as  a 
creature  ?  that  if  the  latter  made  the  image  with  his  own 
hand,  he  had  an  iyso  facto  proof,  which  it  was  not  in  his 
power  as  a  rational  being  to  deny,  that  it  was  a  creature  ? 
that  if  he  knew  it  to  be  a  creature,  he  must  think  it  to  be 
one  ?  and  that  if  he  thought  it  to  be  a  creature,  he  could 
not  at  the  same  time  think  it  to  be  God  ?  What  logical 
contradiction  could  be  given  to  such  a  defence  ?  Un¬ 
doubtedly  it  is  impossible  that  any  human  being  should 
think  the  material  substance  of  a  stone  or  a  log  to  be 
God.  The  prophet  would,  of  course,  proceeding  upon 
his  own  substantial  meaning  in  his  charge,  treat  such  a 
reply  to  it  as  an  evasion  and  not  an  answer.  If  there  be 
a  species  of  regard  to,  a  feeling  to,  a  whole  internal 
attitude  of  the  mind  toward  an  image  which  is  idolatrous, 
while  it  does  not  absolutely  deify  it,  such  idolatry  is  not 
refuted  by  this  reply.  But  take  away  this  species  of 
idolatry  from  the  field  of  existence,  as  Mr.  Newman  does, 
and  we  do  not  see  how  the  prophet  can  make  good  a 
charge  of  idolatry  in  the  case.  He  must  yield  to  irresist¬ 
ible  logic ;  the  thing  charged  is  simply  impossible. 
Mr.  Newman’s  reasoning  makes  the  plain  assertions  of 
Scripture  inexplicable,  and  empties  the  whole  arguments 
of  the  whole  line  of  prophets  on  the  subject  of  idolatry 


72 


Theory  of  Development. 


of  validity.  The  Bible  is  made  to  talk  what  is  in  truth 
nonsense  ;  and  the  refinement  of  later  speculative  analysis 
throws  over  its  holy  scorn  and  confident  denunciation,  a 
character  of  little  more  than — to  use  the  expression — a 
high  fanaticism. 

Such  logic,  then,  as  that  before  us  is  refuted  by  the 
fact.  And  this  is  only  another  form  of  stating  that  it  is 
not  sound  logic.  The  principle  of  summum  jus  summa 
injuria  in  justice  has  its  counterpart  in  reasoning. 
There  is  an  extreme,  a  purist  species  of  logic,  which 
marches  through  a  question  like  a  phantom,  and  leaves  it 
just  where  it  was.  The  present  is  an  attempt  to  decide  a 
practical  question  by  the  test  of  an  abstract  truth. 
Idolatry  is  a  practical  thing ;  it  exists,  where  it  does 
exist,  in  the  shape  of  a  certain  actual  state  of  feeling  and 
sentiment  in  an  individual  mind  toward  a  particular 
object;  and  it  must  be  tested  by  being  compared  with  the 
same  individual’s  actual  state  of  feeling  toward  another 
object,  viz.,  God.  If  the  former,  on  comparison,  exhibits 
a  sufficient  distinction  from  the  latter,  it  avoids  the 
idolatrous  character ;  if  it  does  not,  it  assumes  it ;  but  the 
distinction  lies  between  two  practical  states  of  feeling. 
Mr.  Newman’s  test,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  belief  in  the 
abstract  truth  that  one  being  is  God  and  the  other  not. 
How  the  reception  of  the  abstract  distinction  does  not 
necessarily  carry  with  it  that  amount  of  the  practical  one. 
It  might  seem,  indeed,  at  first  sight,  that  the  simple  idea 
of  a  Supreme  Being  implied  in  the  holder  of  it  a  corre¬ 
sponding  supreme  and  inapproachable  standard  in  his  idea 
of  that  Being’s  dignity,  as  compared  with  his  idea  of  any 
other’s.  Because  we  form  the  idea  of  an  infinite  Being, 
we  seem  to  have  an  infinite  idea,  and  therefore  to  be 
ipso  facto  secured  from  the  possibility  of  an  approach  to 
it  in  our  idea  of  any  other  being.  But  that  is  not  true. 


Theory  of  Development. 


73 


In  the  present  case  the  Being  is  infinite,  our  idea  of  Him 
is  finite.  We  have  from  the  imperfection  of  our  nature  a 
necessarily  limited  idea  of  God ;  the  consequence  is  that 
that  idea  is  not  incapable  of  being  approached  in  the 
case  of  forming  a  conception  of  some  other  being,  and 
that  such  a  thing  is  possible  as  raising  the  dignity  of 
some  other  being  too  near  to  His  to  leave  room  for  that 
difference  which  should  exist  between  them.  “  Between 
all,  and  anything  short  of  all,  there  is  an  infinite  interval 
certainly,  in  the  region  of  abstract  truth,  but  not  in  the 
region  of  human  idea  and  conception.  The  human  idea 
of  “  all  ”  is  a  finite  one,  and  therefore  the  interval  between 
that  “  all  ”  and  something  just  short  of  it  is  not  infinite 
in  the  human  mind.  Were  we  infinite  beings,  indeed, 
and  had  an  infinite  idea  of  God  to  begin  with,  we  could 
afford  to  erect  any  finite  conception  of  any  magnitude 
whatever,  and  run  no  risk  of  approach  to  the  infinite  one. 
But  such  a  liberty  cannot  be  conceded  to  circumscribed 
minds  without  an  interference  with  their  finite  idea  of 
that  Being.  And  to  throw  open  the  whole  world  of 
human  conception  to  them,  and  allow  them  to  raise  their 
idea  of  secondary  divinity  as  high  as  they  please,  only 
with  the  abstract  salvo  that  it  is  short  of  supreme,  is  to  be 
secure  in  the  finiteness  of  the  idea  approaching,  while  we 
forget  the  finiteness  of  the  idea  approached.  The  image 
which  our  limited  faculties  can  form  of  the  Supreme 
Being  is  one  to  which  daring  ascents  in  the  scale  of 
secondary  divinity  can,  if  pursued,  make  an  approach, 
and  attain  an  improper  vicinity.  And  although  it  may  be 
argued  that  if  our  idea  of  the  Supreme  Being  is  finite,  we 
have  the  evil,  anyhow,  of  a  less  interval  than  there  ought 
to  be  between  our  idea  of  Him  and  other  beings  ;  still  we 
may  have  quite  a  sufficiently  large  and  awful  idea  of  Him 
to  make  the  practical  distinction  we  want :  and  an  interval 


74 


Theory  of  Development. 


may  be  wide  enough,  if  properly  preserved,  though  it  may 
not  be  if  rudely  invaded. 

Moreover,  this  whole  argument  is  just  not  the  one 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Fathers  of  Nice  took  with 
respect  to  the  Arian  hypothesis.  Mr.  Newman  says, 
“The  Nicene  Council  recognised  the  eventful  principle, 
that  while  we  believe  and  profess  any  being  to  be  a 
creature,  such  a  being  is  really  no  God  to  us,  though 
honoured  by  us  with  whatever  high  titles,  and  with  what¬ 
ever  homage/’  If  this,  as  we  said  before,  means  only  that 
the  Nicene  Council  asserted  of  the  created  God  of  the 
Arians,  that  such  a  being  could  not  be  regarded  as  the 
One  and  Supreme  God  by  them,  that  is,  indeed,  as  true 
as  it  is  irrelevant.  But  if  it  means  that  the  Council 
asserted  that  such  a  being  could  not  be  “  God  to  them,” — 
be  regarded  idolatrously  by  them, — because  they  professed 
Him  to  be  a  creature,  then,  so  far  from  asserting  such  a 
thing,  the  Nicene  Council,  in  the  person  of  her  principal 
Father  and  expositor,  most  clearly,  positively,  and  literally 
asserted  the  contrary.  “If,”  says  Athanasius,  “the  Word 
is  a  creature,  either  He  is  not  true  God,  or  they  must  of 
necessity  say  that  there  are  two  Gods — one  Creator,  and 
the  other  creature ;  and  must  serve  two  Lords — one 
ingenerate,  and  the  other  generate  and  a  creature.  Where¬ 
fore,  when  the  Arians  have  these  speculations  and  views, 
do  they  not  rank  themselves  with  the  Gentiles  ?  For 
they,  like  the  Gentiles,  worship  the  creature .”  St.  Athan¬ 
asius  here  clearly  asserts,  that  the  titles  and  homage  with 
which  the  Arians  honoured  our  Lord  made  our  Lord  a 
God  to  them,  notwithstanding  His  being  pronounced  by 
them  a  creature :  he  clearly  asserts  that  they  paid  divine 
worship  to  this  creature,  believing  Him  to  be  such.  He 
charges  them  with  idolatry,  as  the  immediate  and  neces¬ 
sary  result  of  their  position.  St.  Ambrose  repeats  the 


Theory  of  Development. 


75 


charge,  and  attacks  their  worship  of  a  created  god :  “  If 
the  Son  is  posterior  to  the  rather/’  he  says,  “  He  is  a  new 
god  :  if  He  is  not  one  with  the  Father,  He  is  a  strange 
god  :  why  do  they  worship  a  strange  god  ?”  It  is  obvious 
that  he  could  not  imagine  the  Arian  paying  such  divine 
worship  in  the  first  instance,  on  the  principle  that  the 
bare  acknowledgment  of  creatureship  in  the  being  honoured 
precluded  the  possibility  of  such  worship  in  the  honourer. 
St.  Hilary  has  the  same  argument!  “Knowest  thou  not, 
0  heretic,  who  callest  Christ  a  creature,  that  cursed  are 
they  who  serve  the  creature  ?  Thou  confessest  Christ  to 
be  a  creature  :  know  wliat  this  confession  makes  of  thee  : 
know  that  cursed  is  the  worship  of  a  creature.”  St.  Hilary, 
that  is  to  say,  recognises  the  fact  of  divine  worship  being 
paid  to  a  creature,  confessed  by  the  worshipper  to  be  such. 
“  Why,”  says  St.  Cyril,  “  do  they  believe  the  Son  to  be  a 
creature,  and  yet  worship  him  ?”  the  same  fact  recognised. 
“  God  forbids  us,”  says  St.  Cyril  again,  “  to  think  any  new 
god  to  be  God,  or  to  adore  a  strange  god and  he  pro¬ 
ceeds  to  enlarge  on  the  sin  of  paying  divine  worship  to  a 
being  confessed  not  to  be  the  Supreme  and  Eternal  God. 
“  If  thou  believest  in,”  says  Faustinus,  “and  worshippest 
and  servest  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God,  calling  Him  a 
creature,  expect  the  punishment  due  to  those  who  turn 
the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie.”  “Very  many  of  the  ancient 
Fathers,”  says  Petavius,  “  were  accustomed  to  call  the 
Allans  idolaters,  because  they  adored  one  whom  they 
confessed  to  be  a  creature ;  and  they  assert  that  they  did 
not  differ  from  the  heathen.  ...  So  says  Cyril,  in  his 
fourth  dialogue  on  the  Trinity.  He  shows  the  dogma  of 
these  heretics  to  be  that  the  Son  was  not  true  God,  and 
was  yet  to  be  adored  and  worshipped ;  from  Christians,  he 
thus  argues,  they  had  become  Gentiles  again,  for  that 
they  adored  and  served  creatures,  and  confessed  a  plurality 


76 


Theory  of  Development. 


of  gods,  just  as  the  Gentiles  did.  Inasmuch  as  even  the 
Gentiles  served  the  creature,  and  worshipped  gods,  who 
are  no  gods,  with  the  understanding  that  they  gave,  while 
they  did  so,  the  first  place  to  some  One  and  Supreme 
God,  the  Maker  of  the  universe.” 1 

The  Fathers,  then,  certainly  considered  the  Arian 
position  an  idolatrous  one.  If  it  be  said  that  this  was  a 
mistake  as  to  a  fact ;  that  they  misapprehended  the 
Arian  worship ;  that  if  they  had  asked  the  Arians,  the 
latter  would  have  told  them  that  they  could  only,  from 
the  very  nature  of  their  hypothesis,  pay  a  relative  and  not 
a  divine  worship  to  their  Demiurge,  the  plain  answer,  in 
the  first  place,  is,  that  the  Fathers  knew  that  the  Arians 
could  say  this — it  is  so  obvious  a  defence — and  that  they 
charged  them  with  such  worship,  notwithstanding.  And 
the  answer,  in  the  second  place,  is,  that  the  Arians  did 
say  this,  and  that  the  Fathers  did  not  listen  to  them. 
The  Arians  made  this  very  distinction ;  they  asserted  that 
they  worshipped  Christ,  cr^eTt/cco?,  with  a  relative  worship. 
They  said,  what  the  early  Socinians  have  said  since,  that 
they  paid  a  relative  worship  to  Christ  as  to  a  created 
God.  “  Is  honour  and  worship,”  stands  the  question  in 
the  Eacovian  Catechism,  “paid  to  Christ  in  such  a  way 
as  for  there  to  he  no  distinction  between  Christ  and  God 
in  this  respect?”  And  the  answer  is:  “Ho:  there  is  a 
great  distinction.  For  we  adore  and  worship  God  as  the 
primary  cause  of  our  salvation ;  Christ  as  the  secondary  : 
God  as  Him  from  whom,  Christ  as  Him  through  whom, 
are  all  things.”  Such  a  defence  had  the  Arians,  and  it 
did  not  avail  them.  The  judgment  of  the  Fathers  was 
decided.  Hay,  we  have  Mr.  Newman’s  own  authority  for 
the  fact  of,  and  Mr.  Newman’s  own  concurrence  in,  the 
truth  of  this  judgment.  “The  Arians,”  he  says,  “  were 

1  Petavius,  de  Triuitate,  lib.  ii.  cap.  xii.  sect.  vi. 


Theory  of  Development. 


77 


under  the  dilemma  of  holding  two  gods,  or  worshipping 
the  creature.”  “The  reason/’  he  says  again,  “for  the 
title  ungodliness  (aOeorrj ?)  as  applied  to  the  Arians,  seems 
to  have  lain  in  the  idolatrous  character  of  the  Arian 
worship,  on  its  own  showing,  viz.,  as  worshipping  One 
whom  they  yet  maintained  to  be  a  creature.”1  What? 
the  Arian  worship  idolatrous  on  its  own  showing?  A 
creature  worshipped  as  God,  by  those  who  maintained 
Him  to  be  a  creature  ?  But  this  is  exactly  the  thing  of 
which  we  have  just  heard  Mr.  Newman  denying  the 
possibility.  Let  us  put  the  two  sentences  side  by  side : 
“That  while  we  believe  and  profess  any  being  to  be  a 
creature,  such  a  being  is  really  no  God  to  us,”  is  what  we 
heard  asserted  just  now  as  the  view  of  the  Lathers,  and 
of  the  writer :  that  Arian  “  worship  is  idolatrous  on  its 
own  showing,  as  being  the  worship  of  one,  who  is  main¬ 
tained  to  be  a  creature,”  is  what  we  next  hear  asserted  as 
also  the  view  of  the  Lathers  and  of  the  writer.  On  the 
same  self-evident  ground,  of  “its  own  showing,”  in  both 
cases,  the  same  worship  is  pronounced  to  be  essentially 
idolatrous  in  the  latter  sentence  ;  essentially  not  idolatrous 
in  the  former.2 

The  truth  is — for  it  is  time  that  the  distinction  between 
the  two  views  should  be  summed  up — the  Lathers  plainly 
condemned  the  whole  Arian  hypothesis,  application,  sub¬ 
stance  and  all.  Mr.  Newman  does  not  do  this,  and  does 
not  allow  that  the  Lathers  did.  He  views  the  Arian 
hypothesis  as  consisting  of  two  parts  :  the  hypothesis 
itself,  as  we  may  call  it,  and  the  subject  of  it.  To  make 
the  subject  of  it  our  Lord  was  erroneous.  But  the 
hypothesis  itself  involved  no  idolatry,  and  was  sound. 

1  St.  Athanasius  against  Arianism,  Part  I.  p.  3. 

2  We  have  to  acknowledge  many  obligations  here  and  throughout 
this  article  to  Mr.  Palmer’s  able  and  learned  treatise. 


78 


Theory  of  Development. 


He  separates;  by  an  ingenious  process,  the  application  of 
the  Arian  idea  from  its  substance,  and  applies  the  censures 
of  the  Fathers  to  the  former,  and  not  to  the  latter.  But 
the  Fathers  censured  the  latter.  They  condemned  the 
application  of  the  idea  of  a  created  divinity  to  our  Lord  : 
they  also  condemned  that  idea  of  created  divinity.  They 
charged  the  Arians  with  idolatry.  But  idolatry  could  not 
attach  to  the  Arian  idea  in  its  application ;  for  so  far  as 
our  Lord  was  the  object  of  their  worship,  they  were  not 
idolatrous.  It  attached  to  it  in  its  substance.  The 
position  was  in  itself  an  idolatrous  one.  It  supposed  a 
being,  who  was  not  to  be  supposed, — a  being  who  demanded 
worship  on  account  of  his  greatness,  and  could  not  receive 
it  on  account  of  his  creatureship, — endowed  with  a  quasi- 
eternity  and  creatorial  attributes  which  overwhelmed  the 
imagination  with  the  look  of,  while  they  did  not  touch 
the  abstract  notion  of,  Deity  :  a  being,  virtually  a  god  to 
human  minds,  and  yet  an  idol  the  instant  he  was  a  god. 
The  conception  produced  idolatrous  relations  from  within 
itself,  and  made  its  disciples  and  believers,  necessarily, 
worshippers  of  what  they  ought  not  to  worship.  The 
ideas  of  heretics  are  perpetually  inconsistencies  and 
obliquities,  and  this  was  one.  The  hypothesis  was  inter¬ 
nally  unsound.  The  Fathers,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  did  not 
view  the  Arian  created  godhead  as  “  a  wonder  in  heaven, 
a  throne  mediatorial,  a  title  archetypal,  a  crown  bright  as 
the  morning-star,  a  glory  issuing  from  the  eternal  throne, 
robes  pure  as  the  heavens,  and  a  sceptre  over  all.”  They 
did  not  look  upon  the  conception  as  a  noble,  grand,  and 
inspired  one.  They  regarded  it  with  simple  detestation 
and  abhorrence  ;  and  the  Arian  Demiurgus, — not  simply  as 
a  misrepresentation  of  another,  but  also  as  being  what  he 
was, — was  a  theological  monster  in  their  eyes,  unlawfully, 
profanely,  and  falsely  imagined.  It  was  a  principle  with 


Theory  of  Development. 


79 


them  to  dislike  proximities  to  Deity.  They  feared  and 
suspected,  as  such,  ambiguities  and  borderings  in  this 
department;  and  a  scrupulous  and  jealous  eye  was  ever 
on  the  watch  to  preserve,  in  its  proper  broadness,  not 
merely  by  abstract  definition,  but  in  actual  image  and 
idea  to  the  mind,  the  interval  between  the  Creator  and 
all  created  beings.  Let  creatures  be  creatures,  and  let 
God  be  God,  their  theology  said :  the  halfway  and  mixed 
being,  who  was  a  god  to  the  imagination  and  not  to  the 
reason,  the  nature  which  trembled  on  the  very  verge  of 
godhead,  just  “  all  but  ”  divine,  and  yet  not  divine,  were 
not  legitimate  existences  in  their  eyes.  They  dreaded 
the  confusion  which  vicinity  caused ;  the  shading  off  of 
the  keen  distinction  between  what  was  God  and  what 
was  not ;  the  dilution  of  the  idea  of  Deity.  The  heathens, 
with  their  gradual  ascent  of  being  up  to  the  Supreme, 
and  system  of  approximation,  had  diluted  the  idea  of 
Deity :  the  work  of  the  chosen  people,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  to  preserve  that  idea  keen  and  pure.  The  Lathers 
showed,  on  this  subject,  much  of  what  a  modern  philoso¬ 
phical  developist  will  perhaps  think  a  Judaic  spirit,  and 
the  rj6os  of  the  law ;  mental  vestiges  of  the  old  dispensa¬ 
tion  still  surviving,  but  intended  to  disappear  with  the 
progress  of  truth.  “  It  pleased  God,”  says  Athanasius, 
“  to  show  in  man  His  own  Lordship,  and  so  to  draw  all 
men  to  Himself.  But  to  do  this  by  a  mere  man  beseemed 
not,  lest  having  man  for  our  Lord,  we  should  become 
worshippers  of  man.  Therefore  the  Word  Himself  became 
flesh,  and  the  Father  called  His  name  Jesus  ;  and  so  made 
Him  Lord  and  Christ,  as  much  as  to  say,  ‘  He  made  Him 
to  rule  and  reign.’”  The  idea  is,  evidently,  that  a  human, 
a  created  Kedeemer,  would  have  been  an  ensnaring  object 
to  us,  on  this  ground,  as  seeming  to  claim  worship,  while 
he  was  after  all  only  a  creature.  It  is  the  midway  being. 


8o 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  secondary  god  which  is  objected  to.  “  Consistently/’ 
says  the  same  writer  again,  in  mentioning  some  of  the 
features  of  the  Incarnation,  “  were  such  ascribed  not  to 
another,  but  to  the  Lord,  that  the  grace  also  may  be  from 
Him,  and  that  we  may  become  not  worshippers  of  any 
other,  but  truly  devout  towards  God ;  because  we  pray  to 
no  creature,  no  ordinary  man,  but  to  the  natural  and  true 
Son  from  God,  who  has  become  man,  yet  is  not  less  Lord 
and  God  and  Saviour.”  The  drift  is  clear,  and  pointedly 
against  the  idea  of  secondary  godhead.  Again,  “It  was 
right  that  the  redemption  should  take  place  through  none 
other  than  Him  who  is  the  Lord  by  nature,  lest  we  should 
name  another  Lord,  and  fall  into  the  Arian  and  Greek 
folly,  serving  the  creature.”  Again,  “If  the  Son  was 
worshipped  by  the  angels,  as  excelling  them  in  glory,  each 
of  things  subservient  ought  to  worship  what  excels  itself. 
But  this  is  not  the  case,  for  creature  does  not  worship 
creature,  but  servant  Lord,  and  creature  God.  Thus  Peter 
the  Apostle  hinders  Cornelius,  who  would  worship  him, 
saying,  I  myself  also  am  a  man.  And  an  angel,  when 
John  would  worship  him,  in  the  Apocalypse,  hinders  him, 
saying,  See  thou  do  it  not :  for  I  am  thy  fellow-servant : 
worship  God.  Therefore  to  God  alone  appertains  worship  ; 
and  this  the  very  angels  know,  that  though  they  excel 
other  beings  in  glory,  yet  they  are  all  creatures  and  not 
to  be  worshipped,  but  worship  the  Lord.”  Again,  “  Since 
He  is  not  a  creature,  but  the  proper  offspring  of  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  God,  therefore  is  He  worshipped.”  Certainly 
Athanasius’s  condemnation  of  the  Arian  position  is  no 
“vindication”  of  a  theology  that  would  profess  to  verify 
and  impersonate  it.  The  whole  tone  of  mind,  line  of 
thought,  implied  principles,  on  which  the  Fathers’  con¬ 
demnation  of  the  Arians  proceeds,  and  which  runs  through 
their  arguments,  is  repugnant  to  the  fundamental  idea  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


8 1 


the  Arian  Demiurge.  The  modern  theologian  may  say, 
that  it  is  an  open  question  whether  they  were  right  or 
wrong ;  but  that  the  Fathers  had  their  theological  line,  and 
that  that  was  not  one  of  sympathy  with  secondary  divinity, 
is  a  matter  of  fact ;  and  the  advocate  of  that  idea  must 
go  to  other  ages  than  that  of  Athanasius  for  its  defence. 

To  return  now  to  the  main  line  of  argument  with  which 
we  commenced. 

We  gave  at  an  early  point  in  this  article,  a  statement 
of  the  question  of  development;  that  the  mind  has  a 
natural  idea  of  development,  and  has  a  natural  idea  of 
the  tendency  to  exaggeration  and  abuse  in  development ; 
that  if,  in  any  given  case,  the  former  supplied  a  rationale 
on  one  side,  the  latter  supplied  a  rationale  on  another ; 
that  the  history  of  Christianity  comes  before  us  under  the 
contending  claims  of  these  two  rationales ;  and  that  the 
question  is  how  to  decide  between  the  pretensions  of  the 
two.  We  now  observe  that  Mr.  Newman  has  not  hitherto 
decided  this  question.  He  has  given  a  series  of  tests,  to 
distinguish  a  true  from  a  false  development,  which, — in  the 
way  we  explained, — entirely  omit  one  very  large,  important, 
and  common  kind  of  false  development,  viz.,  exaggeration, 
and  suppose  abuse  upon  the  same  type  to  be  impossible. 
And  one  of  these  tests,  which  seemed  to  demand  peculiar 
attention,  from  its  summary  and  conclusive  pretensions, 
viz.,  that  of  logical  sequence,  has  appeared  to  possess  no 
force  whatever  (in  any  sense  which  does  not  make  it 
assume  the  question  at  issue),  inasmuch  as  persons  differ 
very  much  in  their  views  of  what  is  logic ; — in  particular, 
some  arguments  which  appeared  very  conclusive  to  Mr. 
Newman  having  appeared  quite  inconclusive  to  ourselves. 
The  appeal  to  “  system  ”  is  only  another  form  of  this 
appeal  to  logic,  and  fails  for  the  same  reasons.  And  such 
challenges  as  the  following,  which  almost  pervade,  in  one 

F 


82 


Theory  of  Development. 


or  other  shape,  the  whole  essay,  fall  dead.  To  say  that 
“we  must  accept  the  whole,  or  reject  the  whole;  that 
reduction  does  but  enfeeble,  and  amputation  mutilate ; 
that  it  is  trifling  to  receive  all  but  something,  which  is 
as  integral  as  any  other  portion ;  and  that  on  the  other 
hand  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  receive  a  part,  for  before  you 
know  where  you  are,  you  may  be  carried  on  by  a  stern 
logical  necessity  to  accept  the  whole;”1 — to  say  of  later 
Boman  doctrines  “  that  they  include  in  their  own  unity 
even  those  primary  articles  of  faith,  such  as  that  of  the 
Incarnation,  which  many  an  impugner  of  the  system  of 
doctrine,  as  a  system,  professes  to  accept,  and  which,  do 
what  he  will,  he  cannot  intelligibly  separate,  whether  in 
point  of  evidence  or  of  internal  form,  from  others  which  he 
disavows  ”2 — to  say  this  again  and  again  is  throughout  one 
appeal  of  the  writer  to  the  certainty  of  his  own  logic  ;  that 
is  to  say,  one  act  of  begging  the  question.  Indeed  Mr. 
Newman  himself  admits  the  incompetency  of  his  argu¬ 
ments,  in  any  practical  sense,  for  deciding  the  question. 
“  Tests,”  he  says,  “  it  is  true,  for  ascertaining  the  correct¬ 
ness  of  developments  in  general,  have  been  drawn  out  in 
a  former  chapter,  and  shall  presently  be  used ;  but  they 
are  insufficient  for  the  guidance  of  individuals  in  the  case 
of  so  large  and  complicated  a  problem  as  Christianity, 
though  they  may  aid  our  inquiries  and  support  our  con¬ 
clusions  in  particular  points.  They  are  of  a  scientific  and 
controversial,  not  of  a  practical  character,  and  are  instru¬ 
ments  rather  than  warrants  of  right  decisions.  While, 
then,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  probable  that  some  means  wuil 
be  granted  for  ascertaining  the  legitimate  and  true  develop¬ 
ments  of  Bevelation,  it  appears,  on  the  other,  that  these 
means  must  of  necessity  be  external  to  the  developments 
themselves.”3 

1  Page  154.  2  Page  146.  3  Page  115. 


Theory  of  Development. 


83 

Here,  then,  one  division  of  our  subject  ends,  and 
another  begins.  We  enter  on  another  and  a  further  field 
of  argument,  and  perceive  that,  in  distinction  to  taking 
any  representation,  however  large,  ingenious,  and  exuberant 
of  the  simple  notion  of  development, — any  explanation, 
however  full,  of  its  naturalness,  probability,  commonness 
in  ordinary  life,  and  the  career  of  nations  and  schools,  as 
a  single  step  towards  settling  the  question  of  the  rightness 
or  wrongness,  the  justness  or  immoderateness  of  any  given 
development, — we  are  referred,  as  the  ultimate  point  on 
which  the  whole  argument  turns,  to  the  asserted  existence 
of  an  infallible  guide,  who  is  able  to,  and  does  in  each  case, 
decide  the  question  by  that  simple  gift  of  infallibility ; 
and  pronounces  with  certainty  the  fact  of  a  development 
being  right  or  wrong.  The  doctrine  of  the  Papal  Infalli¬ 
bility  comes  out  as  the  keystone  of  Mr.  Newman’s  whole 
argument,  and  according  as  he  proves,  or  fails  to  prove, 
that  doctrine,  that  argument  stands  or  falls. 

The  argumentative  ground  here  for  the  opponent  of 
Mr.  Newman  has  a  very  different  general  character  from 
the  one  he  has  hitherto  had  to  maintain.  He  has  hitherto 
had  to  argue  against  the  faultlessness  of  certain  develop¬ 
ments  themselves,  and  to  give  his  rationale  of  them,  as 
opposed  to  Mr.  Newman’s.  The  general  direction  of  his 
argument  now  is,  not  so  much  against  those  developments 
as  against  the  necessity  of  imposing  them.  For  though 
the  argument  against  the  Papal  Infallibility  comes  on  in 
the  present  discussion  as  an  argument  against  a  professed 
conclusive  proof  of  the  faultlessness  of  these  developments, 
still  what  it  directly  proceeds  against  is  that  claim  itself 
of  infallibly  sanctioning  and  enforcing  them.  The  asser¬ 
tion  of  this  claim  is  of  course  a  much  more  invidious  one 
than  the  mere  assertion  of  the  truth  of  the  developments 
themselves.  Where  Bevelation  has  left  a  blank,  the 


84 


Theory  of  Development. 


human  mind,  if  it  dwells  at  all  upon  the  unknown 
contents  of  it,  will  naturally  form  some  sort  of  conjecture 
about  them.  To  take  the  example  already  referred  to,  of 
the  state  of  departed  souls  :  Scripture  has,  to  a  great 
extent,  left  a  veil  upon  it;  and  we  are  not  told  what 
will  happen  after  death  to  a  great  number  of  imperfect 
Christians,  who  seem  to  go  out  of  this  life  with  good 
dispositions,  and  often  generous  hearts  in  the  main,  but 
who  have  lived  carelessly.  It  is  better,  doubtless,  to  form 
no  conjecture  about  them  ;  at  the  same  time  we  are  not 
positively  forbidden  to  form  conjectures  within  our  own 
minds,  as  to  the  unknown  and  unseen  world.  If  any  one 
from  a  religiously  amiable  repugnance,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
supposing  that  such  persons  as  the  above  are  necessarily 
reserved  for  eternal  damnation,  and  from  a  strong  idea,  on 
the  other,  that  they  must  require  some  searching  purifica¬ 
tion  to  fit  them  for  a  heavenly  state,  attaches  some 
accompaniment  specially  purgatorial  to  the  intermediate 
state  in  their  case,  it  would  be  hard  to  condemn  him  for 
doing  so.  The  formal  doctrine  itself  of  Purgatory,  Bishop 
Andrewes  would  allow  as  an  opinion  of  the  schools.  But 
it  is  a  different  thing  when  the  pious  conjecture  is  made 
a  fixed  doctrine,  an  article  of  faith,  and  people  are  not 
allowed  a  neutral  state  of  mind  on  a  subject  which 
Revelation  has  left  veiled. 

Before  examining  Mr.  Newman’s  argument  for  the 
Papal  Infallibility,  there  is  one  preliminary  remark  we 
will  make  about  it,  and  that  is  the  exceedingly  small 
space  that  it  occupies  in  the  book.  Certainly  quantity 
is  no  test  of  strength  in  such  a  matter,  and  yet  where  a 
particular  hypothesis  is  the  turning-point  of  the  whole 
argument  of  a  book,  we  expect  to  see  its  establishment 
occupy  some  proportion  of  the  book,  and  to  see  some 
legitimate  prominence  given  to  it.  But  amidst  large, 


Theory  of  Development. 


35 


expansive,  and  detailed  representations  of  development 
itself,  the  argument  for  the  only  position  which  can 
decide  that  development  in  his  favour  comes  in,  in  the 
book,  as  a  kind  of  subordinate  point.  No  reader  would 
find  out,  from  the  way  in  which  it  comes  in,  the  absolutely 
fundamental  place  which  it  holds  in  the  discussion. 
Of  this  argument  for  infallibility  again,  a  very  large 
proportion  is  taken  up  in  the  statement  and  refutation 
of  certain  arguments  against  it,  and  is  of  no  positive  force 
whatever  for  it.  After  such  reductions,  the  solid  positive 
argument  for  the  Papal  Infallibility  is  found  to  occupy 
but  a  small  space  in  the  essay.  It  hangs  and  hovers  over 
the  reader  throughout  as  a  thing  supposed  to  he  proved, 
making  good,  if  true,  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  argument 
as  it  goes  on,  supporting,  if  solid,  all  that  wants  support¬ 
ing  ;  but  the  actual  proof  of  it  hardly  catches  his  eye  as 
he  turns  over  the  pages.  We  are  not  saying  that  this  is 
difficult  to  be  accounted  for,  or  that  Mr.  Newman  does 
not  know  best  his  own  line  of  argument ;  and  that  the  fact 
of  developments  is  not,  in  his  view,  itself  the  substantial 
proof  of  the  existence  of  an  infallible  decider  upon  them  ; 
it  is,  however,  worth  noticing  such  a  feature  as  this. 

Mr.  Newman  states  then  the  positive  argument  for 
infallibility  as  follows  : — 

“  Let  the  state  of  the  case  be  carefully  considered.  If  the 
Christian  doctrine,  as  originally  taught,  admits  of  true  and 
important  developments,  as  was  argued  in  the  foregoing 
Section,  this  is  a  strong  antecedent  argument  in  favour  of  a 
provision  in  the  Dispensation  for  putting  a  seal  of  authority 
upon  those  developments.  The  probability  of  their  being 
known  to  be  true  varies  with  their  truth.  The  two  ideas 
are  certainly  quite  distinct  of  revealing  and  guaranteeing  a 
truth,  and  they  are  often  distinct  in  fact.  There  are  various 
revelations  all  over  the  earth  which  do  not  carry  with  them 
the  evidence  of  their  divinity.  Such  are  the  inward  suggestions 


86 


Theory  of  Development. 


and  secret  illuminations  granted  to  so  many  individuals ;  sucli 
are  the  traditionary  doctrines  which  are  found  among  the 
heathen,  that  4  vague  and  unconnected  family  of  religious 
truths,  originally  from  God,  but  sojourning,  without  the 
sanction  of  miracle,  or  a  definite  home,  as  pilgrims  up  and 
down  the  world,  and  discernible  and  separable  from  the 
corrupt  legends  with  which  they  are  mixed  by  the  spiritual 
mind  alone.’  There  is  nothing  impossible  in  the  notion  of  a 
revelation  occurring  without  evidences  that  it  is  a  revelation ; 
just  as  human  sciences  are  a  divine  gift,  yet  are  reached  by 
our  ordinary  powers,  and  have  no  claim  on  our  faith.  But 
Christianity  is  not  of  this  nature ;  it  is  a  revelation  which 
comes  to  us  as  a  revelation,  as  a  whole,  objectively,  and  with 
a  profession  of  infallibility;  and  the  only  question  to  be 
determined  relates  to  the  matter  of  the  revelation.  If,  then, 
there  are  certain  great  truths,  or  proprieties,  or  observances, 
naturally  and  legitimately  resulting  from  the  doctrines 
originally  professed,  it  is  but  reasonable  to  include  these 
new  results  in  the  idea  of  the  revelation,  to  consider  them 
parts  of  it,  and  if  the  revelation  be  not  only  true,  but 
guaranteed  as  true,  to  anticipate  that  they  will  be  guaranteed 
inclusively.  Christianity,  unlike  other  revelations  of  God’s 
will,  except  the  Jewish,  of  which  it  is  a  continuation,  is  an 
objective  religion,  or  a  revelation  with  credentials ;  it  is 
natural  to  view  it  wholly  as  such,  and  not  partly  sui  generis , 
partly  like  others.  Such  as  it  begins,  such  let  it  be  considered 
to  continue ;  if  certain  large  developments  of  it  are  true,  they 
must  surely  be  accredited  as  true.” — Pages  117-119. 

Now,  the  proof  of  the  Papal  Infallibility  is  made  here 
to  rest  on  the  necessity  of  the  continuance  of  a  revelation 
if  once  given.  The  argument  is  that  so  long  as  nature  is 
our  basis  of  knowledge,  we  have  no  reason  to  look  for 
certainty  of  knowledge ;  but  that  when  a  revelation  has 
been  once  made,  we  have  :  that  a  Divine  act  of  com¬ 
municating  truth  has  thus  taken  place,  different  from  the 
ordinary  one  by  natural  means,  and  having  once  taken 
place,  must  be  expected  to  go  on.  This  granted,  it 


Theory  of  Development . 


87 


follows,  of  course,  that  there  must  be  some  person  or 
tribunal  always  to  keep  this  communication,  this  revela¬ 
tion,  going  :  and  that  tribunal  is  then  pronounced  to  be 
the  Papal  one. 

But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  this  argument  is  put 
in  a  peculiar  form  in  the  passage  before  us ;  and  this 
form  deserves  some  examination  in  the  first  instance. 
“  Christianity  is  a  revelation  which  comes  to  us  as  a 
revelation,  as  a  whole,  objectively,  and  with  a  profession 
of  infallibility ;  and  the  only  question  to  be  determined 
relates  to  the  matter  of  the  revelation.  If,  then,  there 
are  certain  great  truths,  or  proprieties,  or  observances, 
naturally  and  legitimately  resulting  from  the  doctrines 
originally  professed,  it  is  but  reasonable  to  include  these 
true  results  in  the  idea  of  the  revelation,  to  consider  them 
parts  of  it ;  and  if  the  revelation  be  not  only  true,  but 
guaranteed  as  true,  to  anticipate  that  they  will  be 
guaranteed  inclusively.”1  We  will  examine,  then,  this 
form  of  putting  the  argument  for  a  standing  revelation 
before  we  proceed  to  the  argument  itself,  and  attend  to 
the  subtler  dress  before  we  go  to  the  simpler  substance. 

We  have  then  here  supposed,  to  begin  with,  an  original 
revelation,  and  various  unrevealed  results  and  develop¬ 
ments  from  it.  The  arguer  for  a  continuing  revelation 
has  to  convert  this  unrevealed  truth  into  revealed ;  and 
he  does  it  by  an  argument  wdiich  runs  thus  : — A  revela¬ 
tion  must  have  consequences  and  developments  of  some 
kind  or  other  beyond  its  own  original  substance.  Of  these 
developments  some  must  be  true,  though  others  may  be 
false.  The  true  ones,  whatever  they  are,  being  real  results 
of  the  original  revelation,  are  a  part  of  that  revelation ; 
and  being  a  part  of  it,  must  be  revealed  with  the  rest. — 
Now  if  Mr.  Newman  means  here  that  there  exist  in  the 


88 


Theory  of  Development. 


abstract  universe  of  truth  such  absolutely  true  ulterior 
results  of  the  original  revealed  truth  as  he  describes ; 
fully  admitting  this,  we  ask,  Why  must  such  results  be  a 
part  of  the  original  revelation  ?  Because  they  exist  in 
the  universe  of  abstract  truth,  it  does  not  follow  that 
they  are  even  known  to  a  single  human  being,  much  less 
known  for  certain,  and  revealed.  Undoubtedly,  if  they 
were  revealed,  they  would  be  a  part  of  the  original  revela¬ 
tion,  but  their  abstract  existence  does  not  go  one  step  to 
making  them  revealed.  It  is  almost  a  truism,  indeed,  to 
say  that  there  must  be,  at  this  moment,  an  infinite  number 
of  results  from  the  Christian  revelation  existing  in  the 
universe  of  truth,  which  have  not  so  much  as  entered  the 
mere  threshold  of  human  thought,  and  which  never  will 
enter  it  so  long  as  the  world  lasts.  Again,  if  Mr.  Newman 
means  that  a  certain  number  of  such  true  results  must, 
in  the  progress  of  Christianity,  have  entered  into  the 
human  mind ;  that  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the 
whole  mass  of  actual  Christian  developments  is  every  bit 
of  it  false,  and  therefore  but  reasonable  to  allow  that  there 
have  been  and  now  are  actually  in  the  world  some  or  other 
existing  really  true  developments,  we  do  not  see,  even  if 
we  admit  this,  what  he  has  gained  in  the  way  of  proof 
that  we  have  such  developments  revealed  to  us,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word  revelation.  Because  such 
developments  are  somewhere,  we  do  not  therefore  know 
where  they  are;  and  if  we  see  them,  we  do  not  know 
them  as  true.  We  may  make  a  guess,  and  that  is  all. 
Mr.  Newman  starts  with  uncertainty ;  he  has  a  mass  of 
developments  from  an  original  revelation  before  him,  of 
which,  by  the  supposition,  he  does  not  know  which  are 
true  and  which  are  false  ones.  He  professes  to  convert 
this  uncertainty  into  certainty,  by  simply  saying  that 
some  are  really  true,  and  others  really  false.  He  divides 


Theory  of  Development. 


89 


uncertainty  to  us  into  absolute  truth  and  absolute  error 
in  themselves ;  and  to  any  one  asking  where  certain 
developed  truths  are,  and  what  they  are,  simply  answers, 
Never  mind,  they  are  somewhere ;  and  if  they  are  some¬ 
where,  that  proves  that  you  must  know  them.  But, 
surely,  uncertainty  to  us  is  not  removed  by  being  viewed 
as  certainty  in  the  abstract ;  and  truth  is  not  a  bit  the 
more  ascertained  and  revealed  because  one  side  or  another 
must  be  true. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  whole  point  of  this  argument 
lies  in  viewing  the  truths,  for  the  additional  revelation 
of  which  it  contends,  as  resulting  truths,  instead  of  truths 
simply.  But  this  is  not  a  relevant  difference.  It  makes 
no  difference  if  the  uncertain  truths  in  question  are ,  sup¬ 
posing  we  knew  them,  results  and  developments  of  some 
truth  which  we  know.  If  they  are  uncertain,  the  fact  of 
their  coming  from  something  else  which  is  certain  does 
not  the  least  repair  or  undo  their  uncertainty.  All  truth 
is  connected  together,  we  believe,  and  forms  one  whole  ; 
and  yet  that  does  not  prevent  part  of  it  being  ascertained, 
and  part  of  it  not  being.  “  Christianity,”  says  Mr. 
Newman,  “is  a  revelation  which  comes  to  us  as  a  whole 
and  he  specially  argues,  therefore,  that  its  results  and 
developments  being  included  in  that  whole,  are  revealed 
to  us.  But  if  he  means  by  the  “  revelation  coming  as  a 
whole,”  that  the  whole  of  what  is  revealed  to  us  is 
revealed  as  a  whole,  such  a  truism  does  not  help  him  the 
least  to  his  inference  that  a  variety  of  indefinite  resulting 
truths  are  in  that  whole  :  if  he  means  that  that  revelation, 
from  the  fact  of  revealing  certain  fundamental  truths, 
pledges  itself  to  reveal  these  other  indefinite  resulting 
ones,  in  that  case  we  entirely  deny  the  assumption. 
And,  therefore,  the  particular  point  on  which  so  much 
stress  is  laid,  that  the  uncertain  truths  in  the  present 


90 


Theory  of  Development . 


case  are  developments  from  an  original  truth,  and  not 
independent  and  isolated  truths,  does  not  seem  to  us  to 
add  anything  to  the  argument.  Mr.  Newman  lays  out, 
as  it  were,  a  general  substratum  of  truth  in  sc  before  us, 
part  of  this  truth  being  in  the  revealed  world,  and  part  of 
it  out  of  it.  On  the  view,  then,  of  all  of  it,  whether 
revealed  or  not,  having  one  common  existence  as  truth 
in  sc,  he  calls  upon  us  to  infer  that  it  has  all  one  common 
revelation.  But  this  is  to  ask  us  simply  to  contradict 
ourselves.  We  suppose  all  this  further  existence  of  truth 
in  sc  when  we  talk  of  any  given  part  of  truth  being 
revealed,  and  cannot  undo  this  limitation  of  revealed 
truth  by  simply  resupposing  that  further  existence  of 
abstract  truth. 

Nor  is  it  anything  to  the  purpose,  again,  to  call  Chris¬ 
tianity  a  “guaranteed  revelation/'1  a  “revelation”  that 
comes  to  us  with  a  profession  of  “  infallibility  as  if  such 
phrases  amounted  to  anything  more  than  saying  that 
Christianity  was  a  revelation,  as  everybody  believes  it  to 
be.  What  we  mean  by  a  revelation  is  a  guaranteed 
revelation  :  we  use  the  word,  in  contradistinction  to 
natural  religion,  in  that  sense.  Mr.  Newman  separates, 
indeed,  in  his  use  of  the  word,  the  guarantee  from  the 
revelation,  the  truth  in  revelation  from  the  guarantee  for 
that  truth.  Becurring,  that  is,  to  the  simply  etymological 
meaning,  he  makes  the  word  revelation  mean  whatever  is 
disclosed — whatever  has  been  made  to  enter  into  any 
human  mind — being  also  true  :  in  which  latter  sense  all 
true  thought  in  the  world  whatever  may  be  called  revela¬ 
tion  ;  and,  with  it,  these  true  results  from  the  original 
revelation,  in  whosesoever  mind  entertained,  may  be  called 
revelation.  But  though,  as  a  mere  verbal  transposition, 
this  makes  certain  indefinite  unascertained  results  of  the 

1  Page  118. 


Theory  of  Development.  91 

original  revelation  look  more  like  revelation  themselves, 
because,  if  they  have  de  facto  occurred  to  any  minds,  they 
are,  by  this  verbal  process,  raised  to  the  rank  of  un¬ 
guaranteed  revelation : — yet  the  reality  remains  exactly 
the  same  as  before.  And  when  Mr.  Newman  asks 
whether  the  guarantee  for  the  original  revelation  does  not 
include  these  (in  his  sense)  revealed  results  from  it,  he 
only  asks,  in  another  form,  the  question,  whether  the 
revelation,  because  it  reveals  some  truth,  does  not  reveal 
a  variety  of  other  resulting  truths.  The  original  absence 
of  revelation  in  the  developments  it  deals  with,  which 
the  argument  found  at  starting,  and  which  it  undertook 
to  remove  from  them,  never  is  removed  :  the  defect 
adheres  to  its  subject-matter,  through  every  stage  that 
the  arguer  takes  it,  and  confronts  him  at  the  end,  the 
same  as  it  was  at  the  beginning. 

Let  us  see  :  If  an  original  revelation  is  guaranteed,  its 
resulting  truths  will  be.  Apply  this  formula  to  a  common 
case.  A  powerful  medicine  is  discovered,  and  attested  or 
guaranteed  beyond  a  question  by  actual  experiment :  but 
some  properties  remain  unguaranteed  and  conjectural, 
and  medical  men  dispute  about  them  :  there  is  a  revela¬ 
tion  certain,  that  is  to  say,  with  some  resulting  truths 
uncertain,  but  existing  in  the  world  of  truth  somewhere, 
could  they  be  ascertained.  Apply  the  formula :  the 
original  discovery  is  guaranteed,  therefore  the  ulterior 
results  are :  therefore  they  are  known  and  ascertained, 
and  medical  men  need  not  dispute  about  them.  A  great 
chemical  law  is  guaranteed  to  a  certain  point  by  actual 
discovery  ;  ulterior  and  finer  results  from  the  same  law 
are  uncertain,  but  there  are  some,  could  they  be  hit  on. 
Apply  the  formula  :  the  law  is  guaranteed  ;  therefore  the 
results  are  :  therefore  you  are  wrong  in  supposing  that 
you  do  not  know  them,  because  you  do. 


92 


Theory  of  Development . 


The  fact  is,  this  whole  mode  of  arguing  from  the  mere 
supposition  of  truth  abstract  beforehand,  before  we  know 
what  is  true,  to  the  fact  that  we  know  the  latter,  is  a 
simple  anticipation  and  forestalment, — an  antedating  of 
the  known  before  its  real  existence.  Mr.  Newman  pro¬ 
fesses  to  perform  a  feat  of  logical  magic,  and  to  get  some¬ 
thing  out  of  something  else  which  has  nothing  at  all  to 
do  with  it.  He  converts  the  known  into  the  unknown, 
as  a  conjuror  changes  one  thing  into  another  before  our 
eyes  :  we  know  that  the  change  does  not  really  take 
place.  With  the  formula,  “  Some  uncertain  truths  are 
results  of  certain  truth  :  if  they  are,  they  are  certain 
themselves,”  he  gets  something  out  of  nothing,  converts 
uncertainty  into  certainty  without  a  medium  ;  and  trans¬ 
mutes  the  known  into  the  unknown  by  a  stroke  of 
legerdemain.  The  case  is  like  trying  to  make  a  number 
more  than  it  is  by  transposition,  and  to  produce  additional 
length  by  a  rapid  shifting  from  the  bottom  to  the  top. 
Impress  the  addition  at  the  top  on  the  eye,  before  it  has 
realised  the  shortening  at  the  bottom,  and  the  line  seems 
longer.  Make  the  mind  put  unknown  truth  before  itself, 
as  truth,  and  it  will  imagine  it  as  known  truth. 

We  must  add — besides  what  we  have  said  about  this 
form  of  argument  itself — that  Mr.  Newman  states  it  in  a 
way  in  which  he  has  no  right  to  state  it,  and  assumes  in 
connection  with  it  what  he  cannot  possibly  by  the  sup¬ 
position  know.  Tor  he  says,  “If  certain  largo  develop¬ 
ments  of  it  are  true,  they  must  surely  be  accredited  as 
true.”1  Now  if  he  is  referring  here  to  the  world  of 
abstract  truth,  there  certainly  are  in  that  world  large, 
nay,  infinite  true  developments  of  this  original  revealed 
truth ;  but  with  which,  as  we  said,  human  knowledge  has 
nothing  to  do.  But  if  he  is  speaking  of  the  true  actual 

1  Page  119. 


Theory  of  Development. 


93 


developments  existing  in  this  concrete  world,  what  does 
he  know  of  these  developments  by  the  supposition  as  to 
whether  they  are  large  or  small  ?  He  is  stating  the  case 
of  actual  truth  in  the  Christian  developments  in  the 
world,  and  he  states  it  exactly  to  coincide  with  the 
desiderated  truth  of  the  Eoman  developments.  He 
assumes  that  there  are  large  existing  developments  of  the 
original  revelation  absolutely  true  ;  and  he  appeals  to  us 
to  know  whether,  there  being  these  large  existing  develop¬ 
ments  which  are  purely  and  absolutely  true,  it  is  not 
reasonable  just  to  crown  their  truth  with  the  guarantee. 
But  this  is  to  lay  out  the  state  of  Christian  truth  in  the 
world  upon  a  mere  assumption.  Of  the  existing  true 
developments  of  Christian  truth  in  the  world,  he  does  not 
know  whether  they  are  large ;  of  the  existing  large  ones, 
he  does  not  know  whether  they  are  true.  The  general 
state  of  development  may  be,  for  anything  he  knows, 
neither  wholly  true  nor  wholly  false,  but  a  mixture  of 
both.  And  if  his  anticipatory  picture  of  it  describes  his 
view  of  the  Roman  developments,  another  anticipatory 
picture  may  describe  another. 

With  this  preliminary  notice  on  the  form  of  putting 
the  argument,  we  proceed  to  the  substance  of  the  argu¬ 
ment  itself.  Divested  of  its  particular  form,  that  argument 
stands  thus : — That  because  God  guarantees  some  truth, 
he  must  necessarily  guarantee  more  :  that  because  there 
is  certainty  to  some  extent,  there  must  be  certainty  to  a 
greater :  that  because  an  original  act  of  revelation  took 
place,  it  must  be  continued.  To  this  we  answer,  Why  ? 
We  see  no  reason  for  thinking  so;  no  presumption  for 
the  expectation.  If  the  argument  is  then  stated  with 
greater  point,  and  revealed  religion  is  exhibited  in  its 
special  distinction  to  natural,  to  remind  us  that  God  has 
confessedly  done  something  different  in  the  latter  from 


94 


Theory  of  Development. 


wliat  he  did  in  the  former,  and  that  having  done  differently, 
He  must  he  expected  to  continue  to  do  so,  we  answer 
again,  as  we  did  at  first,  Why  ?  Why  should  He  go  on 
acting  differently  ?  Why  should  He  not  cease  acting 
differently  ?  Why  should  He  not,  after  acting  differently, 
recur  to  acting  as  He  did  before  ?  Is  it  impossible  to  look 
upon  the  act  of  revelation  as  an  exception  to  a  general 
rule,  which,  having  taken  place,  the  general  rule  operates 
again  ?  Are  there  no  such  things  as  general  rules  with 
exceptions  to,  or  particular  interruptions  of  them  in  the 
ordinary  government  of  the  world  ?  And  is  an  act  of 
revelation,  therefore,  because  it  takes  place,  necessarily 
not  an  exception  to  a  general  rule,  but  a  new  general  rule 
itself?  Whence  do  you  get  that  latter  view  of  it  but 
from  pure  hypothesis  ?  You  may  say,  indeed,  that  you 
have  as  much  right  to  an  hypothesis  of  continuation  as 
another  has  to  an  hypothesis  of  cessation.  But  who 
forms  an  hypothesis  of  cessation?  We  do  not.  We  form 
no  hypothesis  at  all ;  but  taking  the  fact  of  a  revelation 
simply,  of  which  fact  we  are  certain,  ask  you  for  your 
ground  for  more  than  that  fact,  viz.,  for  that  revelation’s 
continuation.  We  stop  with  the  fact :  you  go  beyond 
the  fact,  and  must,  therefore,  give  a  reason  why  you  do 
so.  And  the  only  reason  you  can  have  is  a  simple 
hypothesis  of  your  own.  You  say  a  particular  kind  of 
communication  must  be  continuously  repeated,  because  it 
has  been  made.  We  say  we  see  the  fact  in  the  case,  but 
do  not  see  at  all  why  it  should  be  a  reason  for  that  con¬ 
clusion.  Let  us  consider. — Revelation  is  a  new  course  of 
proceeding  entered  on  by  God  :  if  it  begins,  it  must  be 
expected  to  continue — “  The  circumstance  that  a  work 
has  begun  makes  it  more  probable  than  not  that  it  will 
proceed.”1  But  what  does  this  mean?  Beginning  is  not 

1  Page  123. 


Theory  of  Development . 


95 


an  idea  we  have  got  from  the  fact,  because  beginning 
implies  continuance  :  we  do  not  get  the  fact  of  a  revela¬ 
tion  beginning  in  the  mere  fact  of  it  being  given.  If  by 
putting  revelation  before  our  minds  as  a  new  course  of 
Divine  action,  in  this  way  the  arguer  makes  revelation  a 
continuous  thing  to  begin  wuth ;  he  is  begging  the  ques¬ 
tion.  If  he  means  that  a  Divine  act  of  revelation  took 
place,  the  question  is  then  simply  whether  that  act  must 
be  continuously  repeated ;  and  to  that  we  say  again, 
Why  ?  Let  Mr.  Newman  put  the  question  in  his  own 
peculiar  or  any  other  way,  the  same  substantial  argument 
has  the  same  answer  ready  for  it.  “  If  a  revelation  be 
guaranteed  as  true,  its  true  results  will  be  guaranteed 
inclusively. 5,1  Why  ?  “  Such  as  a  revelation  begins,  such 

let  it  be  considered  to  continue.”  Why  ?  “  If  certain 

developments  of  it  are  true,  they  must  surely  be  accredited 
as  true.”2  Why?  We  cannot  possibly  know  what  the 
whole  of  God’s  purpose  was  in  making  at  a  particular 
time  a  revelation  :  we  cannot  possibly  therefore  have  the 
ground  necessary  for  asserting  that  he  must  “  surely  ” 
make  other  revelations  in  continuous  succession  after  it. 
On  the  contrary,  if  we  are  to  go  at  all  by  the  actual  course 
of  Providence  before  us,  it  is  most  natural  to  suppose  that 
God  would  after  such  a  revelation  leave  men,  with  the 
additional  light  of  truth,  and  all  the  other  advantages  of 
every  kind  which  may  be  part  of  it,  in  their  possession,  to 
carry  it  out  with  more  or  less  of  abuse  or  perversion  if 
they  will.  To  whatever  extent  we  have  positive  evidence 
for  His  not  doing  so,  we  must  believe  that  He  does  not 
do  so.  But  the  facts  of  Providence  before  our  eye  would 
lead  us  to  expect  that  course  rather  than  the  other,  and 
tend  to  discourage  the  idea  of  a  revelation  always  going 
on. 

1  Page  118.  2  Page  119. 


96 


Theory  of  Development. 


We  are  approaching  here  that  whole  line  of  argument 
called  the  argument  of  analogy.  The  argument  of  analogy 
takes  the  course  which  has  just  now  been  taken,  and 
maintains  the  valuelessness  of  simple  presumptions 
respecting  revelation.  The  argument  of  analogy  brings 
us  at  once  upon  Butler’s  great  treatise.  Mr.  Newman 
here  comes  into  collision  (we  have  not  a  right  as  yet  to 
call  it  more  than  a  primd  facie  one,  but  that  it  certainly 
is)  with  the  argument  of  a  writer  for  whom  he  has 
necessarily  a  great  respect,  and  with  whom  he  has  many 
reasons  for  wishing  to  be  in  harmony.  To  guard  his 
Essay  from  the  disadvantage  of  having  so  great  an  authority 
in  opposition  to  it,  he  has  to  explain  Butler.  One  or  two 
instances,  before  we  come  to  the  main  one  with  which  we 
are  concerned,  will  serve  to  show  the  character  of  the 
explanation  which  goes  on,  and  the  way  in  which  particu¬ 
lar  meanings  are  extracted.  The  writer  presents  Butler 
to  us  as  a  sympathiser  at  bottom  with  the  doctrine  of 
development  advocated  in  the  Essay ;  as  holding  and 
teaching  principles  which  necessarily  lead  to  that 
doctrine. 

The  medium  of  such  an  interpretation  is  the  fact  of 
Butler  holding  a  principle  of  development ;  speaking  of 
some  truth  as  involved  in  other  truth  ;  of  natural  infer¬ 
ence ;  of  necessary  result.  For  example  :  The  divinity  of 
the  Second  and  Third  Persons  in  the  Trinity  being 
granted,  Butler  says  the  duty  of  worshipping  them 
necessarily  follows.  “  The  duty  of  religious  regards  to 
both  those  Divine  Persons  immediately  arises  to  the  view 
of  reason  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  relations  in  which 
they  stand  to  us.  .  .  .  The  relations  being  known,  the 
obligations  to  internal  worship  are  obligations  of  reason, 
arising  out  of  those  relations  themselves.”  “  Here,”  says 
Mr.  Newman,  “  is  the  development  of  doctrine  into 


Theory  of  Development. 


97 


worship.” 1  Butler  is  teaching  development.  It  is  true  he 
is.  But  he  is  only,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  argument, 
teaching  a  development  which  is  necessarily  contained  in 
the  original  truth.  Mr.  Newman  cannot  apply  this 
reasoning  to  the  support  of  the  “  hyperdulia  ”  paid  to  St. 
Mary,  except  he  first  assumes  the  existence  of  certain 
relations  to  St.  Mary  which  oblige  to  such  worship  of  her. 
Grant  these  relations,  and  the  cultus  will  follow,  on 
Butler’s  principles ;  but  Butler’s  principles  have  no  kind 
of  tendency  to  establish  those  relations. 

Again,  Butler  in  a  remarkable  passage  speaks  of  the 
meaning  of  Scripture  being  brought  out  more  and  more 
in  the  course  of  ages  by  study  and  reflection  on  the  part 
of  thoughtful  minds.  He  says,  “  Practical  Christianity, 
or  that  faith  and  behaviour  which  renders  a  man  a 
Christian,  is  a  plain  and  obvious  thing  ;  like  the  common 
rules  of  conduct,  with  respect  to  our  ordinary  temporal 
affairs.  The  more  distinct  and  particular  knowledge  of 
those  things,  the  study  of  which  the  apostle  calls  going  on 
unto  perfection,  and  of  the  prophetic  parts  of  revelation, 
like  many  parts  of  natural  and  even  civil  knowledge,  may 
require  very  exact  thought  and  careful  consideration. 
The  hindrances,  too,  of  natural  and  of  supernatural  light 
and  knowledge,  have  been  of  the  same  kind.  And  as  it 
is  owned  the  whole  scheme  of  Scripture  is  not  yet  under¬ 
stood,  so,  if  it  ever  comes  to  be  understood  before  the 
restitution  of  all  things,  and  without  miraculous  interposi¬ 
tions,  it  must  be  in  the  same  way  as  natural  knowledge  is 
come  at, — by  the  continuance  and  progress  of  learning 
and  of  liberty,  and  by  particular  persons  attending  to, 
comparing,  and  pursuing  intimations  scattered  up  and 
down  it,  which  are  overlooked  and  disregarded  by  the 
generality  of  the  world.  For  this  is  the  way  in  which  all 

1  Page  50. 

Gr 


98 


Theory  of  Development. 


improvements  are  made,  by  thoughtful  men  tracing  out 
obscure  hints,  as  it  were,  dropped  us  by  nature  accidentally, 
or  which  seem  to  come  into  our  minds  by  chance.  JSTor 
is  it  at  all  incredible  that  a  book,  which  has  been  so 
long  in  the  possession  of  mankind,  should  contain  many 
truths  as  yet  undiscovered.  For  all  the  same  phenomena, 
and  the  same  faculties  of  investigation,  from  which  such 
great  discoveries  in  natural  knowledge  have  been  made  in 
the  present  and  last  age,  were  equally  in  possession  of  man¬ 
kind  several  thousand  years  before.  And  possibly  it  might 
be  intended  that  events,  as  they  come  to  pass,  should  open 
and  ascertain  the  meaning  of  several  parts  of  Scripture.” 

Of  this  passage  Mr.  Newman  says,  “  Butler,  as  a  well- 
known  passage  of  his  work  shows,  is  far  from  denying 
the  principle  of  progressive  development.”1  “Butler  is 
bearing  witness  to  the  probability  of  developments  in 
Christian  doctrine.”  If  by  u  doctrine  ”  he  means  anything 
that  is  taught,  truth  of  any  kind  connected  with  Christi¬ 
anity,  in  that  sense  Butler  is  certainly  “  witnessing  to 
the  probability  of  development  in  Christian  doctrine.” 
But  if  “  doctrine  ”  is  at  all  intended  to  mean  necessary 
doctrine,  or  the  faith,  in  that  sense  the  passage  does  not 
throughout  give  the  least  sanction  to  a  development  of 
doctrine.  Mr.  Newman  allows  this,  but  he  seems  to 
allow  it  only  as  the  absence  of  a  conclusion,  a  stopping 
short  in  a  line  of  reasoning  which  intrinsically  proceeded 
further.  “  Butler  of  course  was  not  contemplating  the 
case  of  new  articles  of  faith,  or  developments  imperative 
on  our  acceptance.”2  It  ought  rather  to  be  said  that  it  is 
quite  obvious  from  the  whole  passage  that  he  wTas  con¬ 
templating  something  totally  different  from  it.  Indeed 
the  very  first  sentence  in  it  happens  to  show  the  fact  not 
only  that  he  “  did  not  contemplate,”  but  that  he  expressly 
1  Page  102.  2  Page  111. 


Theory  of  Development. 


99 


disavowed  any  reference  to  the  Christian  creed,  for  he 
there  carefully  prefixes  the  mention  of  “  that  faith  and 
behaviour  which  makes  a  man  a  Christian”  as  being 
specially  that  which  he  is  not  going  to  talk  about,  and 
to  which  the  passage  he  is  about  to  write  will  not  refer. 

To  return  to  the  subject.  The  argument  of  Butler  with 
respect  to  presumptions  concerning  revelation,  and  our 
incompetency  to  form  them,  is  as  follows  : — 

“  As  God  governs  the  world,  and  instructs  His  creatures, 
according  to  certain  laws  or  rules,  in  the  known  course  of 
nature  known  by  reason  together  with  experience,  so  the 
Scripture  informs  us  of  a  scheme  of  Divine  providence 
additional  to  this.  It  relates  that  God  has,  by  revelation, 
instructed  men  in  things  concerning  His  government,  which 
they  could  not  otherwise  have  knowm,  and  reminded 
them  of  things  which  they  might  otherwise  know ;  and 
attested  the  truth  of  the  whole  by  miracles.  Now,  if  the 
natural  and  the  revealed  dispensation  of  things  are  both 
from  God,  if  they  coincide  with  each  other,  and  together 
make  up  one  scheme  of  Providence,  our  being  incompetent 
judges  of  one  must  render  it  credible  that  we  may  be  incom¬ 
petent  judges  also  of  the  other.  Since,  upon  experience,  the 
acknowledged  constitution  and  course  of  nature  is  found  to  be 
greatly  different  from  what,  before  experience,  would  have 
been  expected,  and  such  as,  men  fancy,  there  lie  great 
objections  against,  this  renders  it  beforehand  highly  credible, 
that  they  may  find  the  revealed  dispensation  likewise,  if  they 
judge  of  it  as  they  do  of  the  constitution  of  nature,  very 
different  from  expectations  formed  beforehand,  and  liable,  in 
appearance, to  great  objections, — objections  against  the  scheme 
itself,  and  against  the  degrees  and  manners  of  the  miraculous 
interpositions,  by  which  it  was  attested  and  carried  on. 
Thus,  suppose  a  prince  to  govern  his  dominions  in  the  wisest 
manner  possible,  by  common  known  laws  ;  and  that  upon 
some  exigencies  he  should  suspend  these  laws,  and  govern,  in 
several  instances,  in  a  different  manner ;  if  one  of  his  subjects 
W’ere  not  a  competent  judge  beforehand,  by  what  common 


IOO 


Theory  of  Development. 


rules  the  government  should  or  would  be  carried  on  ;  it  could 
not  be  expected  that  the  same  person  would  be  a  competent 
judge,  in  what  exigencies,  or  in  what  manner,  or  to  what 
degree,  those  laws  commonly  observed  would  be  suspended  or 
deviated  from.  If  he  were  not  a  judge  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
ordinary  administration,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  he  would 
be  a  judge  of  the  wisdom  of  the  extraordinary.  If  he  thought 
he  had  objections  against  the  former,  doubtless,  it  is  highly 
supposable,  he  might  think  also  that  he  had  objections 
against  the  latter.  And  thus,  as  we  fall  into  infinite  follies 
and  mistakes  whenever  we  pretend,  otherwise  than  from 
experience  and  analogy,  to  judge  of  the  constitution  and 
course  of  nature,  it  is  evidently  supposable  beforehand  that 
we  should  fall  into  as  great,  in  pretending  to  judge,  in  like 
manner,  concerning  revelation.  Nor  is  there  any  more  ground 
to  expect  that  this  latter  should  appear  to  us  clear  of  objec¬ 
tions  than  that  the  former  should. 

“  These  observations,  relating  to  the  whole  of  Christianity, 
are  applicable  to  inspiration  in  particular.  As  we  are  in  no 
sort  judges  beforehand,  by  what  laws  or  rules,  in  what  degree, 
or  by  what  means,  it  were  to  have  been  expected  that  God 
would  naturally  instruct  us ;  so,  upon  supposition  of  His 
affording  us  light  and  instruction  by  revelation,  additional  to 
what  He  has  afforded  us  by  reason  and  experience,  we 
are  in  no  sort  judges,  by  what  methods,  and  in  what  propor¬ 
tion,  it  were  to  be  expected  that  this  supernatural  light  and 
instruction  would  be  afforded  us.  We  know  not  beforehand 
what  degree  or  kind  of  natural  information  it  were  to  be 
expected  God  would  afford  men,  each  by  his  own  reason 
and  experience ;  nor  how  far  He  would  enable,  and  effectually 
dispose  them  to  communicate  it,  whatever  it  should  be,  to 
each  other ;  nor  whether  the  evidence  of  it  would  be  certain, 
highly  probable,  or  doubtful ;  nor  whether  it  would  be  given 
with  equal  clearness  and  conviction  to  all.  Nor  could  we 
guess,  upon  any  good  ground,  I  mean,  whether  natural 
knowledge,  or  even  the  faculty  itself  by  which  we  are  capable 
of  attaining  it,  reason,  would  be  given  us  at  once,  or  gradually. 
In  like  manner,  we  are  wholly  ignorant  what  degree  of  new 
knowledge,  it  were  to  be  expected,  God  would  give  mankind 


Theory  of  Development . 


IOI 


by  revelation,  upon  supposition  of  bis  affording  one  ;  or  how 
far,  or  in  what  way,  He  would  interpose  miraculously,  to 
qualify  them,  to  whom  He  should  originally  make  the  revela¬ 
tion,  for  communicating  the  knowledge  given  by  it ;  and  to 
secure  their  doing  it  to  the  age  in  which  they  should  live  ; 
and  to  secure  its  being  transmitted  to  posterity.  We  are 
equally  ignorant  whether  the  evidence  of  it  would  be  certain, 
or  highly  probable,  or  doubtful ;  or  whether  all  who  should 
have  any  degree  of  instruction  from  it,  and  any  degree  of 
evidence  of  its  truth,  would  have  the  same  \  or  whether  the 
scheme  would  be  revealed  at  once,  or  unfolded  gradually. 
Nay,  we  are  not  in  any  sort  able  to  judge  whether  it  were  to 
have  been  expected  that  the  revelation  should  have  been  com¬ 
mitted  to  writing,  or  left  to  be  handed  down,  and  conse¬ 
quently  corrupted  by  verbal  tradition,  and  at  length  sunk  under 
it,  if  mankind  so  pleased,  and  during  such  time  as  they  are 
permitted,  in  the  degree  they  evidently  are,  to  act  as  they 
will. 

“  But  it  may  be  said,  ‘  that  a  revelation  in  some  of  the 
above-mentioned  circumstances,  one,  for  instance,  which  was 
not  committed  to  writing,  and  thus  secured  against  danger  of 
corruption,  would  not  have  answered  its  purpose.’  I  ask, 
what  purpose  %  It  would  not  have  answered  all  the  purposes 
which  it  has  now  answered,  and  in  the  same  degree  ;  but  it 
would  have  answered  others,  or  the  same  in  different  degrees. 
And  which  of  these  were  the  purposes  of  God,  and  best  fell 
in  with  His  general  government,  we  could  not  at  all  have 
determined  beforehand.”1 

Now  such  a  passage  as  this,  supported  as  it  is  by,  and 
forming  part  of,  one  whole  line  of  reasoning  which  runs 
through  the  “  Analogy,”  appears  to  decide  beyond  a  doubt 
what  Butlers  view  was.  He  asserts  generally  in  the 
first  place,  that,  the  existence  of  a  revelation  supposed,  we 
are  in  no  way  whatever  judges  a  priori  as  to  the  whole 
plan  on  which  it  is  conducted  ;  that  we  are  quite  ignorant, 
and  that  our  presumptions  on  the  whole  subject  are 

1  Analogy ,  Part  II.  Chap.  in. 


102 


Theory  of  Developmen  t. 


valueless.  Then,  in  particular,  among  the  items  men¬ 
tioned,  about  which  we  are  totally  ignorant,  and  about 
which  our  presumptions  are  valueless,  is  that  of  “  degree.” 
He  says  plainly  we  “are  not  competent  judges  of  the 
degree  to  which  God’s  ordinary  laws  should  be  suspended,” 
supposing  a  suspension  of  them  :  that  we  “  are  in  no  sort 
judges  in  what  proportion  supernatural  light  should  be 
afforded  us,”  supposing  it  afforded  us  ;  “  what  supernatural 
instruction  were  to  have  been  expected  ”  supposing  any 
given.  How  supposing  a  revelation  made,  the  question  of 
its  going  on  or  stopping  at  a  certain  point  is  one  as  to  its 
degree  :  Butler  therefore  plainly  asserts  that  we  are  no 
judges  whether  a  revelation,  supposed  to  be  made,  will  go 
on  indefinitely,  or  stop  at  a  certain  point ;  will  be  given 
once  for  all,  or  be  a  standing  revelation. 

To  this  Mr.  Newman  says :  “  This  reasoning  does  not 
here  apply :  it  contemplates  only  the  abstract  hypothesis 
of  a  revelation,  not  the  fact  of  an  existing  revelation  of  a 
particular  kind,  which  may  of  course  in  various  ways 
modify  our  state  of  knowledge  by  settling  some  of  those 
very  points  on  which,  before  it  was  given,  we  had  no 
means  of  deciding.” 1  Again  :  “  He  (Butler)  is  speaking  of 
our  judging  before  a  revelation  is  given.  He  observes  that 
‘we  have  no  principles  of  reason  upon  which  to  judge 
beforehand  how  it  were  to  be  expected  revelation  should 
have  been  left,  or  what  was  most  suitable  to  the  Divine 
plan  of  government,’  in  various  respects  ;  but  the  case  is 
altogether  altered  when  a  revelation  is  vouchsafed,  for 
then  a  new  precedent,  or  what  he  calls  ‘principle  of 
reason,’  is  there  introduced,  and  from  what  is  actually 
put  into  our  hand  we  can  form  a  judgment  whether 
more  is  to  be  expected.”2  The  conclusion  is  that  there 
is  an  essential  distinction  between  the  presumption  Mr. 

1  Page  122.  2  Page  102. 


Theory  of  Development. 


103 


Newman  contends  for  and  that  which  Butler’s  reasoning 
invalidates.  But  is  such  a  distinction  shown  ? 

First  of  all  we  have  the  distinction  between  “the 
hypothesis  of  a  revelation  and  the  fact  of  an  existing 
revelation,” — between  judging  beforehand  and  judging 
after;  that  if  a  revelation  actually  exists,  we  can  argue  that 
it  will  go  on,  whereas,  in  Butler’s  reasoning,  it  was  only 
hypothetical,  and  therefore  he  could  not  so  argue.  This 
is  absolutely  a  distinction  without  a  difference.  True  it 
is  that  Butler  is  supposing  a  revelation  with  his  opponent ; 
and  true  it  is  that  Mr.  Newman  can  take  for  granted  a 
revelation  with  us.  But  what  is  the  difference  between  a 
fact  and  a  supposed  fact,  as  to  the  argumentative  erection 
upon  it  ?  In  supposing  a  fact,  you  make  it  a  fact  as  far 
as  reasoning  is  concerned ;  a  real  fact  is,  as  far  as  reason¬ 
ing  is  concerned,  no  more.  Its  hypothetical,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  its  actual  existence,  makes  all  the  difference 
to  it  as  a  fact,  but  can  make  none  whatever  to  it  as 
a  premiss.  In  the  present  case,  agreeing  with  Mr. 
Newman  in  the  fact  of  a  revelation,  we  are  solely  con¬ 
cerned  with  that  fact  as  the  premiss  of  a  conclusion  which 
he  fastens  upon  it.  Bishop  Butler  says,  on  the  supposi¬ 
tion  of  a  revelation  we  are  no  judges  beforehand  to  what 
extent  it  ought  to  go  on.  In  supposing  a  revelation 
Butler  supposed  the  fact  of  it ;  he  supposed  it  being  made. 
He  might  have  presumed  with  Mr.  Newman  from  that 
supposed  existence,  that  once  existing  it  would  go  on  in 
perpetuum  revealing ;  but  he  does  not  presume  so.  He 
had  the  self-  same  argumentative  ground  in  an  hypothetical 
fact  which  Mr.  Newman  has  in  an  actual  one,  and  he 
argues  differently  from  it.  Mr.  Newman’s  fact  is  the  idea 
of  the  fact,  the  same  as  Butler’s  was  :  if  a  revelation  takes 
place  it  must  go  on  :  a  revelation  does  take  place,  and 
therefore  goes  on  :  it  is  the  same  thing  :  Butler,  in  deny- 


104 


Theory  of  Development. 


ing  the  former,  denies  the  latter.  Indeed,  for  a  person  to 
form  a  certain  inference  (or  absence  of  one)  from  a  sup¬ 
posed  fact,  and  then  to  form  a  totally  different  one  from 
the  same  fact  afterwards  because  it  is  a  real  one, — to  say, 
I  judged  thus  beforehand  before  it  did  take  place,  but  I 
judge  differently  afterwards  because  it  does  take  place, — is 
simply  self-contradictory.  If  we  abstain  from  presuming 
beforehand  the  continuation  of  a  revelation  from  its 
original  bestowal,  we  must  abstain  from  presuming  it  after. 
‘"Before”  and  “after”  are  nothing  in  the  case;  we  do  not 
argue  from  the  fact  as  before,  or  from  the  fact  as  after, 
but  from  the  nature  of  the  fact  itself.  Mr.  Newman 
thinks  that  from  the  fact  of  a  revelation  taking  place, 
we  must  presume  that  it  will  continue ;  Butler  had  that 
very  fact  before  him,  and  he  forbade  such  a  presumption. 

We  mean  to  say  that  Butler  only  differed  from  Mr. 
Newman  in  the  persons  he  was  arguing  with,  not  at  all  in 
what  he  was  arguing  from.  He  had  the  actual  fact  of  a 
revelation  before  him,  as  far  as  he  himself  was  concerned, 
just  as  Mr.  Newman  has;  and  of  that  actual  revelation  he 
argued  that  it  need  not,  because  it  was  a  revelation,  be 
such  and  such  a  kind  of  one,  which  persons  presume  it 
ought  to  be.  Mr.  Newman,  on  the  other  hand,  argues 
that  because  it  is  a  revelation  it  ought  to  be  a  certain  kind 
of  one,  viz.,  a  standing  and  continuing  one. 

Mr.  Newman  next  urges  that  Butler  contemplated 
indeed  a  revelation,  but  did  not  contemplate  a  revelation 
“  of  a  particular  kind :  ”  of  the  kind,  viz.,  which  Mr. 
Newman  is  contemplating.  And  to  this  it  is  enough  to 
answer,  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  Butler  should  par¬ 
ticularise  all  the  kinds  of  revelation  in  the  case  of  which 
he  does  not  allow  presumption,  for  that  would  be  endless  ; 
it  is  sufficient  if  he  lays  down  a  general  head  of  what  he 
considers  groundless  presumptions,  and  if  Mr.  Newmans 


Theory  of  Development.  105 

comes  under  it.  His  argument  asserts  generally  that  we 
are  not  judges  of  what  a  revelation  should  he  ;  and  there¬ 
fore  any  particular  judgment  formed  on  this  subject 
comes,  by  the  nature  of  the  case,  within  his  argument’s 
operation.  However,  he  does  happen  to  go  very  near  to 
mentioning  the  very  particular  which  Mr.  Newman’s  pre¬ 
sumption  concerns.  Mr.  Newman’s  argument  on  this 
latter  head  proceeds  thus: — “The  developments  of  Christi¬ 
anity  are  proved  to  have  been  in  the  contemplation  of  its 
Divine  Author,  by  an  argument  parallel  to  that  by  which 
we  infer  intelligence  in  the  system  of  the  physical  world. 
In  whatever  sense  the  need  and  its  supply  are  a  proof  of 
design  in  the  visible  creation,  in  the  same  do  the  gaps,  if 
the  word  may  be  used,  which  occur  in  the  structure  of  the 
original  creed  of  the  Church,  make  it  probable  that  those 
developments  which  grow  out  of  the  truths  which  lie 
around  them,  were  intended  to  complete  it.”1  Hence 
he  concludes,  that  when  we  have  a  revelation  before  us 
“  of  a  particular  kind,”  then,  “from  what  is  actually  put 
into  our  hands,  we  can  form  a  judgment  whether  more  is 
to  be  expected.”  Now  the  “particular  kind”  of  revela¬ 
tion,  described  above,  is  a  revelation  which  reveals  some 
truths,  and  does  not  reveal  others ;  which  guarantees 
some  ground,  and  does  not  guarantee  more.  The  creed  is 
what  is  revealed  ;  the  gaps  are  what  are  not  revealed.  So 
far  as  the  word  “  gap”  means  anything  more  than  this,  so 
far,  e.g.,  as  it  is  intended  to  insinuate  in  the  word  that  the 
original  revelation  is  inconsistent  without  the  additions  to 
it,  so  far  its  meaning,  as  begging  the  whole  question  at 
issue,  is  irrelevant  and  is  to  be  excluded.  The  fact  before 
us  is  a  revelation,  which  tells  us  some  things,  which  does 
not  tell  us  others.  However  much  we  may  desire  to  know 
those  other  things,  however  much  we  may  be  led  by  that 

1  Page  101. 


io6 


Theory  of  Development. 


part  of  truth  which  is  revealed  to  us  to  desire  to  know 
them,  however  well,  supposing  them  to  he  known,  they 
would  join  on  to  and  complete  an  original  revelation, 
such  a  revelation  comes,  with  all  those  accompaniments, 
under  the  head  of  a  revelation  which  tells  us  some  truth 
and  does  not  tell  us  more.  Now  this  kind  of  revelation 
Butler  distinctly  contemplates.  He  contemplates  many 
kinds  of  revelations.  He  contemplates  a  revelation  with 
“  certain  evidence,”  one  with  “  highly  probable  ”  evidence, 
one  with  “doubtful  evidence;”  a  “revelation  revealed  at 
once,”  a  revelation  “unfolded  gradually,”  a  revelation 
“  committed  to  writing,”  a  revelation  “  handed  down  by 
verbal  tradition”  only.  He  contemplates  other  kinds  of 
revelations.  Among  these  various  kinds  of  revelation 
thus  contemplated,  he  contemplates  a  revelation  which 
revealed  to  a  certain  “  degree  ”  and  not  further ;  a  “  super¬ 
natural  light  afforded  ”  in  a  certain  “  proportion,”  and  not 
a  larger  one.  He  contemplates,  that  is,  a  revelation  in¬ 
complete  in  its  communication  of  truth.  And  of  such  a 
revelation  he  distinctly  asserts  that  there  is  no  presump¬ 
tion  whatever  against  it.  That  is  to  say,  in  other  words, 
there  is  no  presumption  from  the  fact  of  its  incompleteness 
that  it  will  go  on  to  fill  that  incompleteness  up.  Let  us 
take  one  of  Mr.  Newman’s  instances  of  the  argument.  The 
original  revelation  does  not  tell  us  what  the  divine  dis¬ 
pensation  is  with  respect  to  a  large  mass  of  imperfect 
human  souls  on  their  departure  from  this  life :  this  is  a 
gap ;  purgatory  fills  up  this  gap  ;  therefore  purgatory  is  a 
revealed  doctrine.  Can  Mr.  Newman  seriously  think  that 
Butler  would  have  admitted  such  a  mode  of  arguing  (we 
mean  the  mode  simply  without  reference  to  the  subject  of 
it)  as  this  ?  Suppose  a  sceptic  coming  to  him,  and  saying 
that  he  could  not  believe  in  the  Christian  revelation 
because  it  had  so  many  gaps  in  it.  Would  he  have  set  to 


Theory  of  Development.  107 

work  to  prove  one  by  one  that  these  different  gaps  were 
in  reality  filled  up  ?  or  would  he  have  told  him  that  it 
did  not  become  a  person  of  his  imperfect  knowledge  to  be 
bringing  gaps  at  all  as  any  objection ;  that  he  could  not 
know  what  God’s  whole  purpose  was  in  a  revelation,  and 
therefore  could  not  know  that  such  gaps  were  inconsistent 
with  His  purpose  ?  And  if  the  sceptic  replied  that  these 
gaps  were  of  more  than  intellectual  importance,  inasmuch 
as  if  they  were  filled  up  sonje  practical  duties  would  ensue, 
which  do  not  exist  now,  or  would  at  any  rate  have  a  clear 
positive  ground,  instead  of  an  hypothetical  one,  would  the 
line  and  tone  of  the  ‘‘Analogy  ”  compel  us  to  yield  to  such 
a  reply,  or  would  it  suggest  that  there  was  no  presumption 
that  God  would  reveal  to  us  all  truths,  from  which  practi¬ 
cal  duties  would  follow  supposing  he  did  ?  “  It  is  highly 

credible  beforehand,”  is  its  great  general  answer,  “  that 
revelation  should  contain  many  things  appearing  to  ns 
liable  to  great  objection.1  The  analogy  of  nature  shows 
beforehand  not  only  that  we  may,  but  also  probably  that 
we  will,  imagine  that  we  have  strong  objections  against  it.” 
“The  whole  constitution  and  course  of  nature  shows  that 
God  does  not  dispense  his  gifts  according  to  our  notions 
of  the  advantage  and  consequence  they  would  be  to  us.” 
“  It  may  be  said  that  a  revelation  (wanting  in  certain 
things)  cannot  answer  its  purpose.  I  ask  what  purpose  ? 
It  will  not  answer  all  the  purposes  which  it  would 
answer  with  them,  and  in  the  same  degree ;  but  it  will 
answer  others,  or  the  same  in  different  degrees.” 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  is  an  argument  from  our 
ignorance.  Butler  is  arguing  ultimately,  not  from  analogy, 
but  from  something  prior  to  analogy.  Prior  to  all  proof 
from  analogy,  such  an  imperfect  creature  as  man  must 
confess  the  great  probability  of  his  ignorance  with  respect 

1  Analogy,  Part  IT.  Chap.  in. 


io8 


Theory  of  Development. 


to  the  whole  designs  of  God,  in  His  several  dispensations, 
and  therefore  must  confess  the  valuelessness  of  his  pre¬ 
sumptions  as  to  them.  Analogy  indeed  comes  in  and 
proves  this  ignorance  demonstrably ;  because  it  shows 
that  whereas  we  had  formed  various  presumptions  re¬ 
specting  what  a  Divine  dispensation  would  be,  these 
presumptions  are  as  a  matter  of  fact  falsified  by  the  dis¬ 
pensation  of  nature  before  our  eyes.  We  had  imagined 
that  God  would  certainly  act  in  such  and  such  a  way, 
some  best  imaginable  way  of  our  own  conception ;  hut  we 
find  that  as  a  fact  He  does  not.  Well  then,  argues  analogy, 
here  is  proof  positive  of  your  ignorance.  It  is  indeed 
absurd  that  you  should  want  any  external  proof  of  it ;  hut 
here  is  the  proof,  as  you  want  one.  You  have  made  your 
guess,  and  your  guess  turns  out  wrong.  Now  then,  at  any 
rate  confess  your  ignorance,  and  be  wise. — This  is  what 
is  called  the  negative  side  of  the  argument  of  analogy, 
that  side  on  which  it  is  conclusive.  It  is  not  conclusive 
on  its  positive  side ;  far  from  it :  it  only  gives  us  pro¬ 
babilities  on  that  side,  because  on  that  side  it  only  argues 
that  because  such  and  such  a  course  of  things  has  gone 
on,  it  will  continue  to  go  on  the  same.  On  its  positive 
side  it  only  conjectures  future  facts ;  on  its  negative,  it 
points  to  present:  it  is  a  presumptive  argument  on  its 
positive  side ;  it  argues  from  actual  fact  against  presump¬ 
tion  on  its  negative.  It  is  arguing  on  the  latter  side  now. 
Butler  argues  from  analogy,  but  from  analogy  as  proving 
by  matter  of  fact  what  was  sufficiently  evident  before  in 
itself — human  ignorance.  “We  may  see  beforehand/'  he 
says,  “  that  we  have  not  faculties  for  this  kind  of  specu¬ 
lation."  And  analogy  comes  in  as  confirmative.  “  So, 
prior  to  experience,  they  would  think  they  had  objections 
against  the  ordinary  course  of  nature."  “  Since,  upon 
experience,  the  acknowledged  constitution  and  course  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


109 


nature  is  found  to  be  greatly  different  from  wliat,  before 
experience,  would  have  been  expected,  this  renders  it 
beforehand  highly  credible  that  they  will  find  the  re¬ 
vealed  dispensation  likewise  very  different  from  expecta¬ 
tions  formed  beforehand.”  And  thence  the  conclusion 
follows.  Men  must  not  “  pretend  to  judge  from  precon¬ 
ceived  expectations.”  “  It  is  self-evident  that  the  objec¬ 
tions  of  an  incompetent  judgment  must  be  frivolous.” 
“  Since  it  has  been  shown  that  we  have  no  principles  of 
reason  upon  which  to  judge  beforehand,  how  it  were  to  be 
expected  revelation  should  have  been  left,  or  what  was 
most  suitable  to  the  divine  plan  of  government,  it  must 
be  quite  frivolous  to  object  afterwards  to  any  of  them, 
against  its  being  left  in  one  way  rather  than  another ;  for 
this  would  be  to  object  against  things  upon  account  of 
their  being  different  from  expectations  which  have  been 
shown  to  be  without  reason.”  This  negative  use  of 
analogy  is  the  use  to  which  Butler’s  work  as  a  whole 
applies  it.  “  The  design  of  this  Treatise  is  to  show  that 
the  several  parts  principally  objected  against  in  this 
moral  and  Christian  dispensation  .  .  .  are  analogous  to 
wrhat  is  experienced  in  the  constitution  and  course  of 
Nature  or  Providence ;  and  that  the  chief  objections 
which  are  alleged  against  the  former  are  no  other  than 
what  may  be  alleged,  with  like  justness,  against  the  latter, 
where  they  are  found  in  fact  to  be  inconclusive;”  which 
“  argument  from  analogy  is  in  general  unanswerable.” 1 

We  write  the  above  with  reference  to  what  follows. 

Mr.  Newman,  after  explaining  Butler’s  reasoning  in  his 
own  favour,  in  order  to  be  utrimque  jparatus,  proceeds  to 
give  reasons  for  doubting  the  validity  of  it ;  and  after 
proving  that  the  argument  from  analogy  is  not  against 
him,  opposes  the  argument  from  analogy.  “  Nor  can  it, 

1  Analogy ,  Introduction. 


I  IO 


Theory  of  Development. 


as  I  think,  be  fairly  denied  that  the  argument  from  Analogy 
in  one  point  of  view  tells  against  anticipating  a  revelation 
at  all ;  for  an  innovation  upon  the  physical  order  of  the 
world  is,  by  the  very  force  of  the  terms,  inconsistent  with 
its  ordinary  course.  We  cannot  then  regulate  our  ante¬ 
cedent  view  of  the  character  of  a  revelation  by  a  test, 
which,  applied  simply,  overthrows  the  very  notion  of  a 
revelation  altogether.  Anyhow,  Analogy  is  in  some  sort 
violated  by  the  fact  of  a  revelation,  and  the  question 
before  us  only  relates  to  \  the  extent  of  that  violation.”1 
Now  here  it  will  be  observed  that  Mr.  Newman  has 
glided  out  of  one  ground  into  another.  He  has  got  upon 
the  ground  of  positive  analogy,  and  is  arguing  against  its 
conclusiveness ;  whereas  this  has  not  been  Butler’s  argu¬ 
ment.  He  has  not  been  telling  us  what  antecedent  views 
to  form  of  revelation,  but  dissuading  us  from  giving 
weight  to  any ;  not  been  arguing  that  revelation  is  like  to 
present  fact,  but  proving  by  present  fact  that  we  are 
ignorant  beforehand  what  revelation  should  be. 

The  argument  positive  indeed  of  analogy  is  of  undoubted 
force  in  its  own  way,  and  Butler  brings  it  in.  We  do 
unquestionably  argue  from  like  to  like,  “from  that  part 
of  the  Divine  government  over  intelligent  creatures 
which  comes  under  our  view,  to  that  government  of 
them  which  is  beyond  it;  and  from  what  is  present 
collect  what  is  likely,  credible  or  not  incredible,  will 
be  hereafter.”  And  this  argument  undoubtedly  tells,  in 
a  way  which  we  need  not  describe  here,  but  which  is 
familiar  to  all  readers  of  Butler,  much  more  against  the 
presumption  for  a  standing  revelation  than  for  one.  The 
obvious  irregularities,  breaks,  and  limitations  in  the  case 
of  natural  knowledge,  suggest  the  same  in  the  case  of  the 
revealed.  But  no  one  ever  supposed  that  such  analogical 

1  Page  122. 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 1 1 


presumptions  were  conclusive.  “  There  is  a  very  strong 
presumption/’  says  Butler,  “  against  common  speculative 
truths,  and  against  the  most  common  facts  before  the 
proof  of  them,  which  yet  is  overcome  by  almost  any 
proof;”  and  “ presumptions  from  analogy,”  he  adds,  “ are 
overcome  by  the  same  proof.”  The  probability  of  things 
being  like  what  we  see,  only  holds  good  of  them  “  in  those 
respects  in  which  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  they  will 
be  different  ” — “  real  probabilities  which  rise  even  to  moral 
certainty  are  overcome  by  the  most  ordinary  testimony.” 
Analogy  tells  us,  for  example,  with  all  the  certainty  with 
which  analogy  can,  that  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow ;  but 
we  know  that  a  day  will  come  when  it  will  tell  this 
falsely, — a  day  when  the  heaven  and  the  earth  shall  be 
dissolved.  Such  intrinsic  defectiveness,  however,  in  the 
positive  argument  from  analogy  does  not  prevent  Butler 
from  giving  the  argument  weight.  In  particular,  he 
allows  for  “  a  peculiar  presumption  from  analogy  ”  against 
a  revelation  in  the  first  instance ;  and  yet  continues 
taking  analogy  for  his  guide  in  his  presumptions  for  that 
revelation.  Mr.  Newman  appears  to  see  a  contradiction 
here,  and  says,  “We  cannot  regulate  our  antecedent  view 
of  the  character  of  a  revelation  by  a  test  which,  applied 
simply,  overthrows  the  very  notion  of  a  revelation  alto¬ 
gether.”  But  there  is  no  contradiction.  Analogy  did 
not  “  overthrow  the  very  notion  of  a  revelation ;  ”  it  could 
only  presume  against  it.  It  never  pretended  to  be  con¬ 
clusive,  and  therefore  is  not  invalidated  by  being  shown 
not  to  be.  A  demonstrative  proof  is  refuted  by  one  con¬ 
trary  case  ;  a  ground  of  probability  is  not ;  and  exceptions 
do  not  undo  an  argument  which,  of  its  own  nature,  admits 
of  exceptions.  After  this  particular  case  of  violation,  just 
as  after  any  other,  the  positive  argument  of  analogy  goes 
on  and  holds  good ;  we  continue  and  cannot  help  ourselves 


I  12 


Theory  of  Development. 


judging  of  the  unknown  from  the  known ;  and  we  apply 
it  to  the  very  revelation  against  which  it  has  presumed, 
just  as  to  other  things.  We  regulate,  in  spite  of  this  or 
other  mistakes  which  positive  analogy  may  make,  our 
a  priori  views  of  revelation  by  positive  analogy,  though 
only  presumptively,  of  course  not  conclusively,  and  sub¬ 
ject  to  chance  of  reversal  when  we  come  to  the  fact. 
Indeed,  what  Mr.  Newman  comes  to  after  all,  is  only  that 
that  expectation  is  weakened  in  degree,  and  that  the 
violation  of  it  is  made  less  of  an  objection  by  the  con¬ 
sideration  he  puts  forward.  He  considers  still  that  we 
have  that  expectation,  and  that  the  violation  of  it  is  an 
objection. 

But  he  here  meets  us  with  a  distinction,  which  seems 
to  him,  while  he  allows  the  general  force  of  positive 
analogy,  to  exempt  the  particular  case  of  a  continual 
revelation  from  its  jurisdiction.  “  I  will  hazard,”  he  says, 
“  a  distinction  here  between  the  facts  of  revelation  and  its 
principles  ; — the  argument  from  analogy  is  more  concerned 
with  its  principles  than  its  facts.  The  revealed  facts  are 
special  and  singular  from  the  nature  of  the  case  :  but 
it  is  otherwise  with  the  revealed  principles.  They  are 
common  to  all  the  works  of  God ;  and  if  the  Author  of 
Nature  be  the  Author  of  Grace,  it  may  be  expected  that, 
while  the  systems  of  fact  are  distinct  and  independent, 
the  principles  displayed  in  them  will  be  the  same,  and 
form  a  connecting  link  between  them.  In  this  identity 
of  principle  lies  the  true  Analogy  of  Natural  and  Bevealed 
Beligion  in  Butler’s  sense  of  the  word.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation  is  a  fact,  and  cannot  be  paralleled  by  anything 
in  nature  :  the  doctrine  of  Mediation  is  a  principle,  and  is 
abundantly  exemplified  in  its  provisions.  Miracles  are 
facts ;  inspiration  is  a  fact ;  divine  teaching  once  for  all, 
and  a  continual  teaching,  are  each  a  fact ;  probation  by 


Theory  of  Development. 


IJ3 


means  of  intellectual  difficulties  is  a  principle.”1  Now 
with  regard  to  this  distinction  between  “  facts  ”  and 
“  principles,”  considered  in  itself,  we  do  and  can  give  no 
opinion,  because  the  value  and  legitimacy  of  all  such  dis¬ 
tinctions  depend  entirely  on  the  way  in  which  they  are 
used.  If  such  distinctions  are  used,  so  as  faithfully  to 
represent  the  substantial  state  of  the  case,  they  are  con¬ 
venient  ;  but  they  must  be  used  with  an  entire  subser¬ 
vience  to  the  substantial  state  of  the  case,  and  not  bend 
the  latter  to  themselves.  If  a  continual  revelation  is  a 
“  fact,”  it  is  not  a  fact  like  the  “  Incarnation,”  in  which  it 
is  impossible  by  the  nature  of  the  case  to  look  for  an 
analogy.  If  it  is  a  “  fact,”  it  is  one  in  a  sense  in  which 
probation  of  the  intellect  may  be  called  one  too  :  it  is  a 
general  line  of  proceeding  on  God’s  part  toward  mankind. 
The  substantial  truth  in  the  present  case  is  that  we  expect 
an  analogy  everywhere,  except  where,  by  the  nature  of 
the  case,  we  are  prevented.  The  nature  of  the  case  does 
prevent  us  from  expecting  an  analogy  or  likeness  in 
certain  instances,  but  it  does  not  prevent  us  from  expect¬ 
ing  one  in  the  present ;  and  therefore  we  expect  it,  and 
we  argue  from  a  certain  line  of  proceeding  in  nature  to  a 
like  line  in  revelation. 

Thus  much  with  respect  to  the  positive  argument  of 
analogy,  and  its  weight  in  the  present  question.  But  this 
argument  is  not — and  we  have  introduced  it  principally 
for  the  sake  of  showing  that  it  is  not — the  argument 
which  Butler  uses  for  showing  the  valuelessness  of  d 
priori  reasonings  with  respect  to  revelation.  The  argu¬ 
ment  by  which  he  proves  that,  is  an  appeal  to  the  simple 
fact  of  human  ignorance,  from  which  the  incapacity  for  so 
reasoning  necessarily  follows.  He  strengthens  this  fact, 
indeed,  by  a  reference  to  analogy,  by  showing  that  the 

1  Page  123. 

H 


Theory  of  Development. 


114 


very  things  we  object  to  exist  in  God’s  natural  dispensa¬ 
tion,  and  that  therefore  the  fact  proves  that  we  are  wrong. 
But  it  is  analogy  as  proving  ignorance,  and  not  analogy 
simple  and  positive,  which  is  the  basis  of  his  argument. 
It  follows  that  to  endeavour  by  various  objections  and 
distinctions  to  weaken  the  force  of  the  positive  argument 
of  analogy  is,  in  the  present  question,  to  fight  the  air,  for 
we  do  not  invalidate  one  ground  by  detracting  from 
another.  Whatever  arguments  may  be  adduced  to  relax 
the  force  of  simple  verisimilitude,  and  the  inference  from 
the  known  to  the  unknown,  do  not  in  the  remotest  way 
touch  the  ground  on  which  we  have  been  going  in  this 
question.  They  do  not  touch  that  truth  of  human  ignor¬ 
ance  which  no  verisimilitude  but  actual  consciousness 
witnesses,  nor  that  evidence  of  human  ignorance  which 
no  probabilities  but  actual  facts  afford  us.  And  on  the 
ground  of  that  ignorance,  and  that  incompetency  for  a 
priori  judgment,  we  cannot  allow  any  weight  to  Mr. 
Newman’s  presumption  that  a  revelation  is  to  be  continued 
because  it  has  been  made. 

And  now  we  will  make  one  remark  on  the  whole  mode 
of  treating  the  argument  of  analogy  which  has  come  before 
us  here, — on  the  general  relations  which  Mr.  Newman,  as 
a  reasoner,  seems  to  have  entered  into  to  that  argument. 
There  is  an  established  argument  then,  to  which  all  this 
discussion  has  had  reference,  called  the  Argument  of 
Analogy.  We  have  had  to  view  this  argument  on  different 
sides,  but,  taken  comprehensively,  it  is  an  argument  which 
intervenes  between  the  a  priori  reasoner  and  revelation. 
It  establishes  a  certain  medium  through  which  a  priori 
reasoning  has  to  pass,  and  checks  and  regulates  our 
presumptions  with  respect  to  revelation  by  an  appeal  to 
the  course  of  nature.  That  there  are  difficulties  connected 
with  the  theory  of  this  argument  may  be  true,  and  Butler 


Theory  of  Development.  1 1 5 

invited  the  attention  of  philosophers  to  them  when  he 
wrote  his  treatise ;  though  the  invitation,  we  believe,  has 
never  been  attended  to,  and  the  theory  of  the  argument 
has  remained  comparatively  uninvestigated  to  this  day. 
But  this  is  a  consideration  which  does  not,  of  course, 
affect  the  practical  weight  of  it,  and  the  Argument  of 
Analogy,  involving  the  medium  which  we  have  men¬ 
tioned,  appeals  to  us  like  other  substantial  and  practical 
truth. 

ISTow  here,  on  the  other  hand,  is  an  argument  which 
makes  us  reason  a  priori  without  this  medium, — makes 
us  reason  from  the  idea  of  a  revelation  to  a  conclusion 
with  respect  to  that  revelation,  straight  and  directly. 
It  says  the  existence  of  a  revelation  at  all  is  an  indepen¬ 
dent  ground  of  reasoning,  from  which  by  itself  we  draw 
a  sure  inference  with  respect  to  that  revelation,  viz.,  that 
it  will  continue  and  be  a  standing  one.  And  when  the 
argument  from  analogy  steps  in  with  the  veto  from  nature, 
i.e.  the  experience  which  nature  gives  us  of  our  ignorance, 
and  tells  the  arguer  that  he  cannot  so  presume,  the  arguer 
replies  that  a  revelation  being  given  is  a  new  ground, 
which  lifts  him  above  this  analogy  of  nature,  and  is  of 
itself  a  direct  intellectual  basis  for  this  conclusion.  He 
tells  us  that  revelation  as  such  supersedes  the  appeal  to 
nature,  and  from  the  fact  that  it  is  revelation  certifies  to  a 
standing  revelation.  That  is  to  say,  here  is  a  view  which 
does  not  allow  the  argument  of  analogy  to  perform  its 
necessary  functions  or  work  at  all,  for  whereas  that  argu¬ 
ment  by  its  own  nature  intervenes  between  us  and  our 
presumptions  with  respect  to  revelation,  this  view  cuts 
off  that  intervention. 

The  argument  of  analogy,  in  short,  ends  where  revela¬ 
tion  begins,  in  other  words,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
argument  from  analogy.  The  very  nature  of  analogy 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 1 6 


supposes  two  sides  of  it,  which  it  argumentatively  connects. 
The  whole  argument  in  Butler  goes  on  the  principle  that 
although  revelation  is  a  new  and  distinct  line  of  proceed¬ 
ing  on  God’s  part  from  nature — it  one  thing,  nature 
another — yet  that  we  may  and  must  reason  from  one  to 
the  other,  must  ever  form  our  presumptions  about  the 
former  under  the  veto  and  through  the  medium  of  the 
latter.  But  this  essential  argumentative  connection  is 
dissolved  if,  as  soon  as  revelation  comes,  analogy  goes,  and 
revelation  itself  supplies  the  presumptions  about  revela¬ 
tion.  Nor  will  it  alter  the  case  to  call  revelation  a  new 
order  of  nature,  and  make  its  continuation  analogous  to 
that  new  order  of  nature  so  called ;  to  say,  “  The  case, 
then,  stands  thus  :  that  revelation  has  introduced  a  new 
law  of  divine  governance,  over  and  above  those  laws  which 
appear  in  the  natural  course  of  the  world,  and  henceforth 
we  argue  for  a  standing  authority  in  matters  of  faith,  on 
the  analogy  of  nature  and  from  the  fact  of  Christianity  ;  ” 1 
— the  analogy  of  nature  meaning  here  exactly  the  same 
thing  with  the  fact  of  Christianity,  i.e.  revelation  here 
being  viewed  as  nature.  For  this  new  order  of  nature,  if 
revelation  be  called  such,  is,  in  the  Argument  of  Analogy, 
the  very  dispensation  the  view  of  which  an  analogy  of 
nature  regulates.  It  is  not,  therefore,  by  the  argument, 
that  regulating  analogy  of  nature.  It  is  the  subject  and 
not  the  basis  of  the  analogy ;  and  to  call  it  by  the  name 
of  nature  gives  it  no  new  function,  and  makes  it  no  more 
that  course  of  nature  from  which  the  analogy  proceeds 
than  it  was  under  the  name  of  revelation.  Bevelation 
then,  in  spite  of  the  verbal  change,  still  presumes  about 
itself :  the  analogy  of  revelation  to  nature  is  the  analogy 
of  revelation  to  revelation.  The  argument  from  analogy, 
with  its  parallelism,  retreats  before  one  member  of  it. 

1  Page  124. 


Theory  of  Development. 


ii  7 


One  of  the  lines  has  become  its  own  parallel ;  the  stream 
has  both  banks  on  one  side ;  revelation  is  its  own  analogy. 
And,  therefore,  when  Mr.  Newman  speaks  of  his  conclusion 
of  a  standing  revelation  “  being  forced  on  him  by  analogical 
considerations,”  he  speaks  of  an  analogy  which  he  has 
explained  away,  and  unsubstantiated  altogether.  The 
whole  argument  has  evaporated  under  his  distinctions,  and 
left  him  an  analogy  which  has  no  nature  to  make  revela¬ 
tion  analogous  to,  and  which  he  has  especially  adopted 
because  it  has  not.  He  has  treated  the  argument  of 
analogy  as  the  Germans  treat  inspiration,  and  under  the 
appearance  of  explaining  it  has  dissolved  it. 

It  is,  however,  important  before  leaving  the  subject  to 
follow  out  these  two  bases  of  reasoning  which  we  have 
been  contrasting  into  their  respective  lines  of  thought 
and  ultimate  positions  with  respect  to  religious  truth. 

We  have  then,  on  the  one  hand,  a  great  presumptive 
ground  asserting  that  if  a  revelation  is  given  it  must  go 
on  ;  that  human  nature  wants  a  present  infallible  guide ; 
that  “  Christianity  must,  humanly  speaking,  have  an 
infallible  expounder.”1  Upon  this  original  notion  of  what 
is  necessary  arises  immediately  the  assertion  of  what  is, 
and  with  that  assertion  a  whole  corresponding  view  of  the 
existing  matter-of-fact  Church,  and  its  established  body 
of  ideas,  however  and  wherever  derived.  A  whole,  to  use 
the  word,  perfectionist  view  of  the  historical  progress  of 
thought  and  growth  of  truth  in  the  Church  earthly,  and 
the  Christian  world  is  ultimately  imposed  by  an  original 
basis  of  presumption  like  the  present.  The  hypothesis  of 
a  standing  revelation  cannot  afford  to  make  any  large 
established  ideas  in  the  earthly  Church  erroneous,  it 
would  interfere  with  such  a  standing  revelation  to  do  so ; 
a  pledge  for  the  absolute  correctness  of  all  that  growth 

1  Page  128. 


1 18 


Theory  of  Development. 


of  opinion  which  the  infallible  guide  sanctions  is  contained 
in  the  notion  of  that  infallible  guide.  Thus  inevitably 
arises  the  great  general  view  that  whatever  is  is  right. 
The  fact  of  certain  ideas  getting  established  becomes  itself 
the  proof  of  their  truth.  We  see  this  view  immediately 
in  the  tone  of  the  arguer.  The  arguer  reposes  in  fact ;  he 
carries  the  sensation  about  with  him  of  largeness,  extent, 
numbers ;  a  doctrine  that  spreads  over  a  large  surface, 
that  is  held  de  facto  by  a  large  mass,  is  its  own  evidence. 
His  tone  of  reasoning  is  a  perpetual  memento  of  the  de 
facto  ground.  It  is  almost  a  condescension  for  him  to 
argue  at  all ;  he  has  the  fact,  that  is  his  argument.  That 
his  use  of  the  fact  is  an  assumption  is  lost  sight  of  in  the 
largeness  of  the  fact  itself ;  the  authority  of  fact  becomes 
itself  a  fact,  and  is  ever  seen  in  the  background  as  the 
supreme  authority,  beyond  which  no  appeal  lies.  The 
arguer  is  thus  less  occupied  in  proving  than  in  simply 
unfolding  his  assumption.  He  explains  how  it  was  that 
such  opinions  arose,  the  need  that  was  felt  for  them,  their 
convenience  in  filling  up  certain  chasms  in  the  original 
revelation.  It  was  thus,  he  explains,  that  their  truth 
became  known.  This  desire  became,  in  course  of  ages, 
stronger  and  stronger,  till  at  last  it  formally  expressed 
itself :  the  mass  of  Christendom  resolved  that  these 
opinions  were  true,  and  accordingly  they  became  known 
truths,  and  have  continued  so  up  to  the  present  day. 
Such  is  the  account  of  the  rise  of  this  doctrine,  of  this 
article  of  faith  :  the  arguer  simply  traces  the  progress  of 
their  discovery  and  adjustment  from  the  very  first  dawn  of 
the  want  to  the  climax  of  the  supply.  The  completeness 
and  rotundity  of  the  formed  system  are  then  urged ;  the 
coincidence  of  the  fact  that  such  doctrines  exist,  with  the 
fact  that  they  were  wanted ;  the  coincidence  of  the  various 
results  and  ramifications  of  developed  doctrine  with  each 


Theory  of  Development, 


1 19 


other ;  the  coincidence  of  the  permanency  of  their  recep¬ 
tion  with  the  fact  of  that  profession  of  infallibility  which 
first  sanctioned  it.  “  When  we  are  convinced  that  large 
developments  do  exist  in  matter  of  fact  professing  to  be 
true  and  legitimate,  our  first  impression  naturally  must 
be  that  these  developments  are  what  they  pretend  to  be. 
The  very  scale  on  which  they  have  been  made,  their  high 
antiquity,  yet  present  promise,  their  gradual  formation, 
yet  precision,  affect  the  imagination  most  forcibly.”1  We 
need  hardly  say  that  Mr.  Newman,  in  accordance  with  the 
whole  tone  of  his  book,  and  his  appeal  to  the  living  and 
real,  as  opposed  to  merely  historical  and  formal,  of  course 
understands  by  these  developments  of  doctrine  not  the 
simple  statements  on  paper,  but  doctrine  as  generally 
understood  and  believed, — the  practical  and  energising 
opinions  of  the  Christian  body.  Here,  then,  is  what  may 
be  called  a  perfectionist  view  of  the  progress  of  truth  in 
the  Christian  world.  The  ideas  which  establish  themselves 
time  after  time  in  the  Church  are  ipso  facto  true.  What 
exists  is  right ;  each  successive  stage  of  thought  improves 
on  the  following  one ;  truth  advances  with  the  certainty 
of  a  mathematical  problem ;  an  infallible  centre  produces 
a  perfect,  ever  operating  self- correction ;  and  the  present 
state  of  things,  as  regards  our  relations  to  truth,  becomes 
all  that,  humanly  speaking,  we  could  wish  it  to  be. 

The  argument  of  analogy,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  a 
basis  upon  which  a  more  qualified  system  erects  itself. 
Its  maxim  that  we  are  not  judges  of  what  a  revelation 
should  be,  and  consequent  confinement  of  us  to  the  fact  of 
what  revelation  there  has  been,  tends  immediately  this 
way.  That  there  has  been  a  revelation  rests  upon  evidence 
of  fact ;  its  continuance  rests  upon  presumption.  That 
revelation,  then,  as  far  as  it  went,  and  as  much  as  it  said ; 

1  Page  135. 


I  20 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  whole  of  it,  in  whatever  mode  communicated ;  every¬ 
thing  for  the  institution  and  communication  of  which,  as 
a  fact,  there  is  evidence,  the  argument  of  analogy  gives 
us  ;  but  for  the  rest,  it  tells  us  that  we  have  no  revelation, 
and  that  we  cannot,  by  any  notion  on  our  part  that  we 
ought  to  have  one,  make  one.  It  leaves  the  revelation 
which  God  gave,  among  them  to  whom  he  gave  it,  exposed 
to  the  same  chances  of  abuse,  perversion,  or  neglect,  in  the 
carrying  out,  which  attend  on  the  truths  of  nature  ;  in  all 
respects,  except  those  in  which  it  is,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  divinely  guaranteed.  The  Christian  revelation  is 
divinely  guaranteed  against  total  corruption ;  it  has  the 
direct  promise  that  the  “gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it,”  and  stands  in  a  different  position  from  natural 
religion,  in  consequence  of  this  promise.  With  this  safe¬ 
guard,  however,  the  argument  of  analogy  sends  it  down 
exposed  all  the  same  to  common  degrees  of  corruption, 
and  those  changes  which  are  consistent  with  the  substance 
of  the  revelation  continuing.  It  prepares  us,  in  conse¬ 
quence,  for  such  abuses,  if  they  occur ;  it  makes  it  most 
likely  beforehand  that  they  will,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  occur.  To  the  divine  truth,  thrown  into  the  im¬ 
perfect  human  mass,  a  positive  likelihood  of  distortion  and 
discolourment  of  some  kind  attaches.  Not  to  mention 
lower  and  rougher  causes,  the  mere  tendencies  of  the 
human  mind  to  go  off  upon  particular  thoughts,  refine 
upon  the  natural  substance  of  the  truth  put  before  it, 
and  idolise  its  own  conceptions  and  points  of  view,  are 
against  the  probability  of  a  revelation  which  offered  the 
materials  and  supplied  the  occasions  for  abuse,  being 
carried  out  without  it ;  and  running  through  centuries  of 
intricate  and  agitating  contact  with  the  collective  Chris¬ 
tian  intellect,  without  any  deflection  whatever  from  original 
soundness.  If  the  rise  of  such  deflections,  again,  is  pro- 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 2  i 


bable,  their  permanency  is  no  matter  to  be  surprised  at ; 
for  the  same  course  of  things  which  originally  established 
them  makes  them  also  last :  it  was  their  adaptation  to 
some  large  and  prevalent  tastes  which  caused  them  to 
spread  at  first ;  and  the  same  keeps  them  going.  Again, 
when  they  have  been  going  on  for  a  certain  time,  further 
accretions  to  them  give  them  further  hold  :  the  appendages 
of  poetry,  ornament,  association  form  around  them  :  they 
colour  art  and  literature,  they  have  aids  and  alliances  in 
a  hundred  departments  around  them,  and  interweave 
themselves  with  the  life  and  sentiment  of  the  mass.  If 
the  argument  of  a  standing  revelation  can  explain  such 
facts  upon  its  own  hypothesis,  the  argument  of  analogy 
can  do  the  same  on  its  hypothesis ;  and  can  do  it  with 
exactly  the  same  appeal  to  coincidence,  harmony,  and 
wholeness  in  its  explanation.  If  truth  can  systematise 
and  arrange  itself,  error  can  do  the  same ;  once  begun,  it 
is  seen  going  on  by  a  kind  of  intrinsic  force  of  self- evolving, 
self-adjusting  growth. 

To  take,  for  example,  the  popular  and  authorised  cultus 
of  the  Virgin.  The  argument  of  analogy  can  take  an  un¬ 
favourable  view  of  this  cultus ;  offering,  in  doing  so,  quite 
as  complete  an  account,  in  one  way,  of  the  rise,  spread, 
and  permanence  of  it  as  the  argument  of  infallibility  can 
in  another.  That  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  for 
instance,  was  likely,  humanly  speaking,  to  lead  to  it,  falls 
in  just  as  well  with  the  former  as  with  the  latter  argu¬ 
ment  ;  for  we  see,  constantly,  instances  of  great  truths 
which  slide  quite  naturally,  unless  narrowly  watched,  into 
error,  and  seem  to  produce  their  own  misconstruction. 
Here,  then,  analogy  tells  us  we  need  not  be  perfectionists, 
and  uphold  the  whole  growth  of  opinion  in  the  Church  as 
faultless.  And  it  proceeds  to  give  one  or  two  natural 
answers  to  some  claims  and  reasons  urged  on  the  latter 


122 


Theory  of  Development. 


side.  It  is  asked,  for  example,  how  we  can  suppose  that 
God  would  allow  great  saints  and  holy  men  to  have  joined 
in  and  promoted  this  cultus  if  it  was  wrong  ?  But  surely 
it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that,  a  general  tendency  to 
error  being  granted  in  the  Christian  body,  good  men 
should  not,  in  particular  cases,  go  along  with  it,  even 
actively.  The  general  body  suffers  in  its  attitude  toward 
truth.  If  God,  with  all  His  vouchsafed  grace,  has  left 
frailty  in  the  heart  of  every  single  member  of  the  earthly 
Church,  from  the  lowest  sinner  to  the  highest  saint,  you 
cannot  tell  what  may  be  the  consequences  of  this  fact 
upon  the  attitude  of  the  Church,  as  a  body,  toward  truth. 
It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  truth  and  goodness  go  to¬ 
gether  ;  and  that  if  the  Church  is  not  pure  in  one  respect, 
it  will  not  be  pure  in  the  other.  Subtle  evil  is  an  awful 
mysterious  fact,  which  must  be  expected  to  have  its  results. 
You  cannot  tell  how  it  may  operate  in  this  respect.  And 
this  general  tendency  in  the  body  may  carry  away,  in 
particular  cases,  and  even  engage  the  activities  of,  good 
members  of  the  body.  Moreover,  you  may  ask  how  God 
will  allow  this ;  but  if  He  allows  the  element  of  evil  to 
exist  in  these  good  members  at  all,  it  is  no  great  additional 
wonder  if  He  allows  that  element  to  do  something,  and 
make  a  real  difference  in  what  comes  from  them,  and  affect 
the  actual  external  issues  from  their  minds.  Why  should 
not  they  be  subject  to  their  own  class  of  partialities  and 
obliquities,  be  liable  to  take  up  ideas,  and  then  be  over 
fond  of  them  because  they  have  taken  them  up,  and  dwell 
upon  them  with  something  like  mental  luxury,  and  feel 
originality  with  the  secret  relish  of  a  frail  creature,  and  go 
on  to  mould  and  tune  their  minds  to  a  favourite  line  of 
thought,  as  men  tune  an  instrument?  Let  no  persons 
think  we  are  doing  injustice  here  to  the  minds  of  really 
holy  men ;  the  degree  to  which  serious  evil  can  co-exist 


Theory  of  Development. 


123 


with  very  high  dispositions  in  the  soul  is  one  of  the 
mysteries  of  onr  present  state.  We  may  add,  that  apparent 
symptoms  of  some  ethical  unsoundness,  and  of  a  degeneracy 
from  the  purity  and  severity  of  Christian  worship,  are 
found  in  the  particular  tone  which  runs  through  this 
cultus ;  which,  even  in  its  best  form,  seems  to  show  an 
element  of  what  may  be  called  false  sweetness  in  it,  and 
very  soon  runs  out  into  palpable  and  unbecoming  senti¬ 
mentalism.  Again,  if  it  is  such  a  difficulty  that  God 
should  permit  holy  men  to  think  erroneously,  how  are  we 
to  account  for  the  plain  fact  that  He  has  permitted  multi¬ 
tudes,  in  all  ages,  of  the  best  and  noblest  minds  to  do  so, 
and  to  worship  Him  in  faulty  modes?  We  are  concerned 
with  a  principle  of  Divine  government  here,  and  are  not, 
for  an  instant,  comparing  Roman  Catholicism  and  pagan¬ 
ism.  The  human  souls  that  have  lived  and  died  under 
pagan  systems  have  had,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  tempers 
and  natures  as  capable  in  themselves  of  the  fullest  saintly 
development,  and  as  worthy  of  the  correctest  views  of 
truth,  as  those  that  have  lived  and  died  under  Chris¬ 
tianity  ;  but  they  were  permitted  to  think  and  to  worship 
faultily.  Hor  is  it  any  answer  to  this  fact  to  say,  that 
God  has  distinctly  pledged  the  possession  of  the  truth  to 
good  Christians,  and  did  not  to  good  pagans ;  for  it  is  not 
denied  here  that  the  holy  men  we  are  referring  to 
possessed  the  truth,  but  only  that  they  possessed  it  free 
from  all  intermixture  of  error.  The  general  facts  of  this 
earthly  dispensation  show  plainly  that  it  is  a  part  of  God’s 
providence  to  permit  good  men  to  err.  And  though  it  is 
true  that  He  distinctly  teaches  that  “  they  who  do  His  will 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine,”  this  cannot  be  applied  as  a 
certain  test  of  truth  so  long  as  men  do  not  do  His  will 
perfectly.  For  so  long  as  evil  remains  in  good  men,  we 
cannot  tell  what  may  be  the  consequence  of  that  evil,  and 


Theory  of  Development. 


i  24 


liow  far  their  mental  relations  to  truth  may  he  impaired 
by  it.  The  rule  of  doing  His  will  is  absolutely  true  as  a 
practical  rule  to  ourselves ;  but  this  rule  must  be  acted 
up  to  before  it  can  become  an  infallible  test  of  the  teaching 
of  another,  and  we  know  that  no  human  being  does  act  up 
to  it.  Nor  is  this  explaining  away  an  obvious  meaning, 
but  only  excluding  a  forced  one,  as  regards  this  scriptural 
maxim ;  for  its  obvious  meaning,  in  the  way  in  which  it 
is  brought  before  us,  is  that  of  a  practical  rule,  and  the 
other  is  a  subsequently  appended  one.  The  test  of  per¬ 
sonal  goodness  for  deciding  truth,  though  by  no  means  made 
a  useless  or  unimportant,  because  it  is  not  an  infallible 
test,  nor  reduced  to  nothing  because  it  is  not  everything, 
is  yet  not  infallible.  If  Scripture  appeals  to  it  in  some 
places,  in  others  it  warns  us  against  it.  And  the  simple 
fact  that  on  some  most  important  questions  which  divide 
the  Christian  world,  equal  personal  holiness  is  to  be  seen 
on  both  sides,  disqualifies  the  test  of  personal  holiness  in 
general  as  an  absolute  one  on  the  question  of  truth. 

On  the  whole  then,  we  say — according  to  the  argument 
from  analogy — an  original  creed  or  revelation  thrown  into 
the  world  of  human  intelligence  is  exposed  to  all  common 
chances  of  human  discolourment  in  the  carrying  out ;  the 
substantial  original  creed  remaining  throughout  notwith¬ 
standing,  and  secured,  if  there  be  evidence  for  this  fact, 
against  failure  to  the  end.  And  however,  in  reasoning  a 
priori,  out  of  our  own  heads,  respecting  revelation,  we 
might  expect  it  to  do  more  for  us  because  it  did  much, 
and  look  forward  to  a  progress  of  truth  pure,  divinely 
guaranteed  against  error  :  the  argument  of  analogy  on  the 
other  hand  bids  us  expect  no  such  thing,  but  take  the 
facts  as  they  stand.  It  tells  us  not  to  expect  all  must  be 
truth  because  there  is  truth ;  or  again,  to  think  all  must 
be  error  because  there  is  error ;  but  to  expect  both  truth 


Theory  of  Development. 


J25 


and  error.  It  supplies  a  dogmatic  basis  on  the  one  side, 
and  it  allows  for  uncertainty  on  the  other ;  and  bids  us 
neither  be  unbelievers  nor  perfectionists.  It  says — This  is 
a  mixed  world,  and  expect  mixtures  in  it.  Do  not  think 
that  the  progress  of  things  will  be  wholly  one  way,  or 
wholly  another ;  that  it  will  entirely  submerge  truth,  or 
unfold  it  unimpeachably.  There  is  much  of  both  good 
and  evil  in  it.  The  earthly  Church  partakes  of  the  mixed 
character  of  the  world  in  which  it  is  placed,  and  which  it 
has  more  or  less  received  into  its  own  pale.  And  its  best 
members  too  are  not  perfect,  but  have  their  own  undue 
biasses  of  intellect,  temper,  taste,  sometimes  more  open 
and  palpable,  sometimes  more  refined  and  internal. 

Thus  much  for  Mr.  Newman’s  presumptive  argument 
for  a  standing  revelation,  on  which  he  rests  the  proof  of 
the  Papal  Infallibility.  It  only  remains  now  to  take  a 
brief  view  of  this  line  of  proof,  as  distinguished  from 
another  line  of  proof  for  the  same  doctrine. 

The  whole  argument,  then,  of  a  standing  revelation  is 
a  very  different  one  from  M.  De  Maistre’s  argument  of 
simple  church  government.  M.  De  Maistre  argues  for 
the  simple  necessity  of  a  central  government  for  the 
Church ;  the  need  for  a  universal  empire  of  a  universal 
head.  The  simple  idea  of  government,  he  says,  neces¬ 
sarily  takes  us  up,  step  by  step,  to  one  central  and 
supreme  seat  of  government,  for  there  must  be  some 
limit  to  appeal  from  subordinate  authorities,  if  a  question 
is  to  be  settled  at  all ;  and  wherever  the  power  of  appeal 
stops,  you  have  ipso  facto  a  supreme  authority.  Now, 
such  an  hypothesis  as  this  has  certainly  the  advantage, 
as  an  hypothesis,  of  covering  the  whole  ground.  It  is, 
indeed,  absurd  to  expect  that  the  mind  should  be  satisfied 
with  it ;  because  what  the  mind  wants  is  to  believe  what 
is  true ;  and  this  argument  does  not  touch  the  question 


126 


Theory  of  Development. 


of  truth  or  error  in  the  doctrines  themselves  decided  on 
by  this  ultimate  authority.  It  tells  us  the  fact  that  they 
are  decided  on,  and  no  more.  It  views  the  Church 
simply  as  a  polity,  and  professes  to  apply  the  same  prin¬ 
ciples  to  it  which  belong  to  other  polities ;  and  wholly 
omitting  its  prophetical  office  of  teaching  the  truth,  makes 
it  impose  its  dogmas  on  us  on  the  same  principle  on 
which  the  state  imposes  acts  of  parliament.  However, 
it  has,  as  an  hypothesis,  the  advantage  of  covering  the 
whole  ground,  for  every  single  opinion  which  is,  or  can 
be  entertained  among  Christians  is  either  authoritatively 
decided,  or  is  not.  If  it  is,  it  is  authoritatively  decided ; 
and  if  it  is  not,  it  is  authoritatively  not  decided  :  so  that, 
in  either  case,  Christian  doctrine  has  a  perfectly  complete 
basis  provided  for  it. 

Mr.  Newman's  argument,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
much  superior  in  line  to  M.  De  Maistre’s,  for  he  does 
address  himself  to  a  real  internal  craving  after  truth  in 
the  human  mind,  is  not  so  complete,  and  does  not  cover 
the  whole  ground.  The  hypothesis  of  a  standing  revela¬ 
tion  reaches  a  point  where  it  ceases  to  apply,  and  confesses 
that  it  can  explain  no  further.  For  however  largely  truth 
is  revealed  to  us,  after  all  we  come  to  a  point  where  truth 
is  not  revealed  to  us ;  and  it  is  only  a  matter  of  degree 
whether  we  stop  where  an  original  revelation  stops,  or 
stop  where  a  standing  revelation  stops.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  are  a  vast  number  of  questions,  and  some  of 
them  very  important  ones  as  regards  their  intrinsic  truth 
or  falsehood,  which  this  standing  revelation  does  not 
decide.  There  is  the  whole  question,  e.g.,  of  the  attributes 
and  position  of  the  Virgin,  which  this  standing  revelation 
has  scrupulously  avoided  deciding ;  and  a  person  in  the 
Roman  Church  may  either  believe,  with  Mr.  Newman, 
that  the  Blessed  Virgin  is  all  which  the  Allans  supposed 


Theory  of  Development. 


127 


our  Lord  to  be,  or  only  believe  what  the  English  Church 
believes  about  her.  It  has  scrupulously  avoided  saying 
whether  her  conception  is  immaculate  or  not.1  If  a  stand¬ 
ing  revelation  avoids  deciding  important  questions  which 
come  before  it,  it  stops  revealing.  And  though  Mr. 
Newman  may  say  that  it  may  in  course  of  time,  though 
it  has  not  yet  done  so,  turn  into  dogma  or  reject  a 
particular  view  of  the  Virgin  ;  still  here  is  the  fact  before 
us  of  an  important  question  which  this  standing  revela¬ 
tion  has  had  before  it  for  ages,  and  has  refused  to  touch  : 
a  result  (if  true)  included  in  the  idea  of  the  original 
revelation,  and  consequently  part  of  it,  and  consequently 
revealed  in  theory ;  which,  somehow  or  other,  has1  not 
been  revealed  in  fact.  It  is  needless  pursuing  this  remark 
through  the  whole  series  of  instances  in  which  it  would 
apply.  It  is  evident  that  in  multitudes  of  cases  of  theo¬ 
logical  opinion  in  the  Church  public,  not  to  mention  the 
innumerable  daily  cases  in  the  private  life  of  all  Christians 
in  the  world,  who  have  been,  are,  or  will  be,  there  is,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  no  continuous  revelation  which  decides 
for  us.  And  wherever  it  stops,  all  the  objections  which 
apply  to  the  original  revelation’s  continuance,  apply  in 
principle  to  its  cessation  too. 

This  defect,  indeed,  in  the  hypothesis,  is  so  obvious, 
that  the  Eoman  controversialist  attempts  to  answer  it  by 
confessing  it ;  by  showing,  that  is,  that  it  is  admitted 
into  the  rationale  of  the  Papal  Infallibility.  The  idea  of 
a  standing  revelation  which  goes  to  the  real  extreme  of 
its  principle,  and  reveals  everything  whatever  about 
religion  that  people  can  naturally  desire  to  be  told, 
has  its  unreasonableness,  so  far,  granted  that  the  Papal 
authority  voluntarily  decides  a  great  number  of  questions 

1  The  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  was  promulgated 
December  8,  1854. 


128 


Theory  of  Development. 


about  religion  without  revealing ;  simply  commanding  as 
the  supreme  authority,  and  claiming  obedience  on  that 
ground  only.  All  the  questions  which  are  decided  in 
this  latter  way  are  defined,  indeed,  to  be  ones  out  of  “  the 
province  of  infallibility ;”  but  it  is  not  explained  why  they 
should  be  out  of  the  province  ;  and  the  case  is,  simply, 
that  infallibility  has  come  to  an  arbitrary  terminus  which  it 
does  not  choose  to  exceed,  and  that  a  standing  revelation 
stops  short.  In  these  cases  the  Roman  rationale  supplies 
the  defect  of  one  hypothesis  by  ground  from  another,  and 
where  the  profession  of  a  standing  revelation  conveniently 
stops,  introduces  the  appeal  to  mere  authority.  It  constructs 
a  position  out  of  the  argument  of  a  standing  revelation  and 
the  monarchical  argument  combined ;  and  M.  De  Maistre 
and  Mr.  Newman  could  only  give  a  unity  of  hypothesis  to 
its  system  by  each  confining  himself  to  one  side  of  it. 

Accordingly,  the  latter,  after  drawing  out  his  theory 
for  a  standing  revelation,  proceeds  to  join  on  to  it,  as  an 
additional  and  subordinate  one,  the  simple  governmental 
or  monarchical  argument ;  to  assert  “  the  impossibility 
that  an  infinite  wisdom,  in  decreeing  the  rise  of  an 
universal  empire,  should  not  have  decreed  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  a  ruler;”1  a  certain  “ absolute  need  of  a  mon¬ 
archical  power  in  the  Church  ;  which  is  our  ground  for 
anticipating  it;”2  and  of  “a  necessary  centre  of  unity  for 
preserving  the  sacrament  of  unity.”  We  have  not  space 
for  a  regular  discussion  of  this  further  subject ;  and 
contenting  ourselves  with  the  general  answer  that  all  the 
arguments  quoted  above  against  the  validity  of  a  priori 
reasoning  on  the  point  of  a  standing  revelation  apply  to 
the  same  line  of  reasoning  on  the  point  of  an  absolute 
monarchical  authority  and  necessary  centre  of  unity  in 
the  Church,  shall  make  but  one  or  two  reflections  here. 

1  Page  171.  2  Page  170. 


Theory  of  Development.  129 

With  respect,  then,  to  the  direct  proof  of  the  existence 
of  an  absolute  monarchical  authority  somewhere  in  the 
Church,  drawn  from  the  fact  of  the  Church  being  intended 
to  be  one  external  society  ; — of  the  proof  of  the  existence 
of  a  local  centre  of  unity,  drawn  from  the  idea  itself  of 
unity ; — we  do  not  see  the  force  of  it.  The  idea  of  unity 
does  not  imply  a  particular  local  centre  of  unity.  Take  a 
drop  of  water,  or  any  fluid  substance ;  it  is  one  drop,  but 
there  is  no  centre  of  unity  in  it.  The  particles  of  any 
substance  can  adhere  together  by  some  equal  pervading 
adhesion ;  and  do  not  involve  the  existence  of  a  central 
force  in  it  attracting  them  to  itself,  and  preventing  them 
from  flying  off.  The  Church  might  certainly  continue,  as 
far  as  the  nature  of  the  case  is  concerned,  one  external 
society,  without  a  monarchical  head  over  it,  or  centre  in 
it.  What  if  all  Christians  had  from  the  first  obeyed  the 
spirit  of  unity,  and  kept  together  upon  their  own  indi¬ 
vidual  will  \  The  idea,  of  course,  implies  much  more  per¬ 
fection  in  Christians  than  there  has  been ;  but  it  shows 
that  the  Christian  society  does  not,  metaphysically,  and  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  as  one  society,  imply  a  local  centre 
and  head.  Indeed  Christians  did  keep  together  for  many 
centuries  in  fact,  without  any  local  head.  So  much 
for  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  the  metaphysical  reason. 
hTor  does  the  practical  argument,  again,  of  the  expediency 
of  such  a  local  head  for  preserving  unity,  prove  such  a 
necessary  centre  of  unity  as  is  wanted  :  for  an  expedient 
for  preserving  unity  is  not  the  substance  itself  of  unity. 
Water  cannot  rise  above  its  level :  an  argument  cannot 
prove  more  than  its  basis  supports.  The  argument  here 
proceeds  on  simple  expediency  as  its  basis,  and  therefore 
cannot  confer  any  sacramental  character  as  its  result.  The 
Papal  power  is,  on  this  argument,  a  means  to  an  end ;  a 
practical  instrument  for  making  men  keep  a  Christian 


130 


Theory  of  Development. 


ordinance — tliat  of  external  unity.  If  it  fails  to  do  this, 
and  does  not  secure  the  preservation  of  that  ordinance, 
either  from  its  own  excesses  or  the  fault  of  the  material 
it  has  to  do  with,  it  fails  just  as  any  other  instrument  may 
fail  in  doing  its  work :  the  ordinance  is  broken,  and  there 
is  all  the  evil,  whatever  that  may  be,  of  external  schism 
in  the  Christian  body.  But  it  is  the  division  in  the  unity  of 
the  body  at  large,  and  not  the  separation  from  the  Papacy, 
which  is  that  evil ;  and  no  sacramental  virtue  is  conferred 
by  this  argument  on  special  union  with  Pome. 

Again,  the  necessity  of  the  Church  being  one  external 
communion  is  urged  as  a  practical  argument  in  this  direc¬ 
tion  ;  and  for  that  necessity  the  most  common  argument 
urged  is  a  redudio  ad  absurdum  one. 

A  redudio  ad  absurdum  argument  then,  to  prove  that 
the  Church  can  be  but  one  intercommunicating  body  in 
the  world,  proceeds  thus  : — If  there  can  be  two  branches 
of  the  true  Church  not  intercommunicating,  why  may 
there  not  be  a  thousand  ?  and  why  may  not  every  single 
Christian  diocese  in  the  world  split  off  from  every  other, 
and  yet  all  continue  real  Churches  ?  If  two  Churches  can 
be  Churches  without  intercommunicating,  there  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  a  schismatical  Church.  We  must  be  allowed 
to  say  here  that  the  redudio  ad  absurdum ,  as  a  whole  form 
of  argument,  is  in  an  unsatisfactory,  we  may  say  neglected 
state, — there  are  no  recognised  rules  for  the  use  and 
management  of  it ;  and  each  side  on  every  question, 
worldly  or  religious,  wields  it  in  a  loose  irregular  way,  as 
it  serves  a  turn,  and  inflicts  a  temporary  stroke.  In  the 
present  instance  we  shall  only  ask,  would  it  be  a  redudio 
ad  absurdum  of  the  extreme  doctrine  of  the  Papal  Infalli¬ 
bility,  to  suggest  that  there  is  nothing  whatever  in  the 
nature  of  things  to  prevent  a  Pope  turning  Gallican,  and 
proclaiming  the  truth  of  Gallicanism  by  a  formal  bull  ? 


Theory  of  Development.  1 3 1 

Such  an  argument  would  be  considered  puerile ;  and  yet 
we  see  no  difference  in  principle  between  it  and  the 
argument  here  advanced  respecting  schism.  Neither  of 
these  contemplated  absurdities  have  occurred,  and  nobody 
expects  that  they  will  occur.  It  may  be  said  that  there  is 
a  tendency,  an  apparent  beginning  of  the  fact  in  one  case, 
which  there  is  not  in  the  other ;  but  what  difference  does 
this  make,  so  long  as  in  neither  case  the  fact  will  actually 
take  place,  i.e.  so  long  as  the  right  to  say  that  the  fact 
will  not  take  place  is  the  same  on  either  side?  And 
this  right  is  the  same.  For  that  evil  exists  to  a  certain 
degree,  is  no  kind  of  evidence  in  itself  that  it  will  proceed 
to  the  greatest  possible  degree.  There  are  multitudes 
of  beginnings  and  tendencies  in  the  world  which  are  no 
sort  of  evidence,  even  to  the  remotest  probability, 
that  the  extremes  of  which  they  are  the  abstract  begin¬ 
nings,  and  to  which  they  do  abstractedly  tend,  will 
follow.  Every  human  being  tends  to  diabolical  and  insane 
wickedness,  if  by  saying  so  be  meant  that  he  has  the 
beginning  of  that  which,  if  followed  out,  would  become 
such;  but  no  one  would  say  that  an  excellent  religious  man 
actually  tends  to  such  a  character,  for  there  is  not  the 
remotest  prospect,  from  the  fact  of  his  having  evil  in  him, 
that  he  will  become  evil  to  that  amount.  In  the  same 
way  there  may  be  a  beginning  of  unlimited  schism  in  the 
Church ;  but  it  does  not  at  all  follow  from  that,  even  in 
the  way  of  the  remotest  probability,  that  such  unlimited 
schism  will  ensue.  There  is  a  difference  of  degree,  which 
is,  for  ail  argumentative  purposes,  a  difference  of  kind  :  a 
difference  of  degree  in  which  there  is  no  actual  sequence 
from  the  one  extreme  end  of  the  series  to  the  other 
extreme  end.  The  Church  ought  by  rights  to  be  one 
external  society ;  if  she  is  split  up  into  two  or  three  large 
branches,  she  is  so  far  divided,  and  there  is  so  far  schism ; 


1 32 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  principle  of  unity  is  violated.  But  this  is  one  state 
of  things.  A  state  of  things  in  which  Christians,  instead 
of  loving  one  another,  had  grown  to  hate  one  another 
to  such  an  extent,  that  no  one  single  particle  of  the 
Church  wTould  cleave  to  any  other,  and  which  would 
seem  to  show  that  Christian  principle,  and  with  it  the 
Church  upon  earth,  had  evanesced,  is  another  state  of 
things.  And  there  is  no  actual  sequence  from  the 
one  to  the  other.  And  therefore  in  the  two  cases  of 
rcdudio  ad  absurdum  before  us,  one  side  has  as  much 
right  to  disown  the  hostile  supposition  which  its  opponent 
presses  as  the  other  has.  What  we  assert  is  that  all 
division  does  not  take  away  churchship,  and  that  more 
than  one  external  communion  may  be  the  Church.  The 
proper  mode  of  answering  this  is  to  prove  that  all  division 
does  unchurch,  and  that  the  Church  can  only  be  one 
external  communion.  If  the  necessity  of  this  external 
oneness  is  not  established  by  direct  proof,  it  cannot  be 
established  by  this  rcdudio  ad  absurdum ;  for  because 
the  fact  of  existing  division  has  to  be  accounted  for,  we 
have  not  therefore  to  account  for  the  fact  of  a  vast  amount 
of  division  which  does  not  exist. 

But  we  must  go  from  these  reflections  on  certain  lines 
of  reasoning  on  the  subject  before  us,  to  the  examination 
of  a  statement.  Mr.  Newman  asserts  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  all  Christianity  outside  of  the  Boman  obedience  has 
been  a  failure,  and  that  therefore  there  is  the  evidence  of 
fact  to  the  divine  institution  of  the  Papal  Monarchy. 
“Wherever  the  Pope  has  been  renounced,  decay  and 
division  have  been  the  consequence.” 1  “  The  Church  is  a 

kingdom ;  and  heresy  is  a  family  rather  than  a  kingdom  : 
and  a  family  continually  divides  and  sends  out  branches, 
founding  new  houses  and  propagating  itself  in  colonies, 

1  Page  170. 


Theory  of  Development.  133 

each  of  them  as  independent  as  its  original  head ;  so  was  it 
with  heresy.”  1  And  this  observation  is  meant  to  be  appli¬ 
cable  to  all  that  is  outside  of  the  Eoman  obedience.  Now 
to  bring  this  statement  to  the  test  of  fact.  There  is  a  large 
and  important  branch  of  the  Church,  which,  never  having 
been  under  the  Eoman  obedience  from  the  first,  refused 
about  a  thousand  years  ago  to  conform  to  it,  and  has  con¬ 
sequently  been  separate  from  the  Eoman  see  ever  since. 
This  portion  of  the  Church  has  not  exhibited,  since  that 
separation,  division  or  decay.  With  respect  to  division  : 
The  Eastern  Church — the  portion  to  which  we  allude — 
was  very  fertile  in  division  and  heresy  before  the  separa¬ 
tion  of  East  and  West ;  and  when,  therefore,  not  the  East' 
by  itself,  but  the  whole  Church,  East  and  West  together, 
as  one  body,  were  responsible,  so  far  as  responsibility  was 
incurred,  for  such  events.  It  was  very  fertile  in  schism 
in  early  times,  as  the  Western  Church  has  been  in  later. 
But  the  Eastern  Church  has  had,  since  the  separation  of 
East  and  West,  comparatively  no  division  or  heresy  rising 
out  of  it;  the  Nestorian  heresy  and  the  Monophysite, 
which  subsequently  split  into  the  Armenian,  Jacobite, 
and  others,  date  prior  to  that  era.  The  Eastern  Church 
again  has  not  exhibited  decay.  It  was  overwhelmed 
by’  Barbarians  in  its  more  Eastern  domains,  just  as 
the  African  Church  was  overwhelmed  by  the  Yandals ; 
but  it  found  other  ground,  and  soon  after  its  Asiatic 
reverses  shot  up  with  marvellous  vigour  and  success 
in  the  North  of  Europe.  Its  conversion  of  the  North, 
the  largest  and  most  striking  of  all  the  conversions  of 
the  middle  ages,  took  place,  it  is  to  be  remembered, 
after  the  separation  from  Eome ;  and  the  result  is  now 
before  us  in  the  shape  of  the  Bussian  Church,  with  its 
history,  saintly  names,  and  associations,  and  all  the 


134 


Theory  of  Development . 


ecclesiastical  accumulations  of  a  thousand  years.  The 
Eastern  Church  presents  at  this  day  the  phenomenon  of  a 
Church,  comprehending  about  eighty  millions  of  Christians, 
in  perfect  doctrinal  unity  with  itself,  chanting  the  same 
creed  and  the  same  liturgies  now  which  it  has  chanted 
every  day  of  every  year  since  the  time  of  St.  Basil,  the 
Gregories,  and  St.  Chrysostom,  up  to  this  present  hour  at 
which  we  write, — a  Church  in  full  possession  of  the 
popular  affection  throughout  its  domains,  and  fertile  in 
examples  of  the  most  holy,  self-denying,  and  severe 
Christian  life.  Such  is  the  Church  which  is  asserted  to 
have  exhibited  nothing  but  decay  and  division  since  the 
separation  from  Rome. 

Mr.  Newman’s  line  with  respect  to  the  Greek  Church 
is  indeed  a  feature  in  the  Essay  to  be  observed.  His 
ordinary  view  supposes  it  not  to  exist ;  and  the  argument, 
proceeding  as  if  there  were  no  such  body,  is  of  course  not 
encumbered  by  the  fact  at  all.  But  he  is  necessarily 
brought  into  contact  with  it  occasionally,  and  then  he 
supposes  it  as  a  totally  different  fact  from  what  it  is.  He 
supposes  Eastern  Christianity  to  be  an  effete  and  stagnant 
superstition,  showing  no  life  and  producing  no  fruits. 
Its  permanence  confronts  him  as  an  obstacle  to  his  theory 
of  a  corruption,  which  makes  corruption  “the  end  of  a 
course,  a  transition  state  leading  to  a  crisis,  and  as  such  a 
brief  and  rapid  process;”1  and  the  same  theory,  which 
proved  that  corruption  could  not  attach  to  Roman  doctrines, 
because  they  were  permanent,  has  to  be  explained  when 
it  comes  across  the  doctrinal  permanence  in  the  East.  And 
the  explanation  is  the  one  mentioned.  “  Decay,”  he  says, 
“  which  is  one  form  of  corruption,  is  slow.  ...  We  see 
opinions,  usages,  and  systems,  which  are  of  venerable  and 
imposing  aspect, but  which  have  no  soundness  within  them, 

1  Pa^e  90. 


Theory  of  Development. 


135 


and  keep  together  from  a  habit  of  consistence  and  from 
dependence  on  political  institutions ;  or  they  become 
almost  peculiarities  of  a  country,  or  the  habits  of  a  race,  or 
the  fashions  of  society.  .  .  .  Such  are  the  superstitions  which 
pervade  a  population,  like  some  ingrained  dye  or  inveterate 
odour,  and  which  at  length  come  to  an  end  because  nothing 
lasts  for  ever.” 1  “Whether,”  he  continues,  “ Mahometanism, 
external  to  Christendom,  and  the  Greek  Church  within 
it,  fall  under  this  description,  is  yet  to  be  seen.”  And 
so  the  case  of  the  Eastern  Church  is  dismissed.  But 
surely  upon  this  very  statement,  highly  unfavourable  as 
it  is  to  Eastern  Christianity,  the  case  of  Eastern  Chris¬ 
tianity  cannot  be  so  dismissed.  For  the  only  conclusive 
proof  of  the  theory  of  decay,  viz.,  dissolution,  it  confesses 
to  be  wanting  here,  and  it  allows  that  whether  the  Eastern 
Church  “comes  to  an  end”  or  not  “is  yet  to  be  seen.” 
It  has  not  then,  at  any  rate,  come  to  an  end  yet ;  and  so 
long  as  it  has  not,  it  is  the  phenomenon  of  a  permanent 
Christian  doctrine  and  society  outside  of  the  Boman 
obedience,  and  is  therefore  a  real  difficulty  which  his 
theory  has  to  surmount,- — a  difficulty,  we  must  add,  which 
is  but  imperfectly  covered  by  coupling  its  permanence 
and  that  of  Mahometanism  (which  is  no  difficulty  to  Borne 
whatever)  together.  The  “  barrenness,  if  not  lifelessness,”2 
of  the  Greek  Church,  however,  is  the  one  idea  taken  for 
granted  throughout  the  Essay,  and  is  aided  by  side  remarks 
here  and  there,  such  as  the  casual  suggestion  that  it  is 
mere  accident  that  it  did  not  fall  with  the  rest  of  early 
heresy  contained  in  the  quotation  from  Gibbon,  that 
perhaps  the  “  Greeks  would  be  still  involved  in  the  heresy 
of  the  Monopliysites  if  the  Emperor’s  horse  had  not 
fortunately  stumbled.  Theodosius  expired,  and  his  ortho¬ 
dox  sister  succeeded  to  the  throne.”  3 

1  Page  91.  2  Page  72.  3  Page  46. 


136 


Theory  of  Development. 


With  respect  then  to  this  assertion  of  lifelessness  in 
Eastern  doctrines,  we  do  not  know  what  particular  stan¬ 
dard  of  life  in  a  Church  may  he  implied  here,  hut  we  will 
propose  one  to  which  there  can  be  small  objection. 
Doctrine  is  not  barren  and  lifeless  which  produces  good 
works.  Other  things  may  be  wanting;  hut  if  they  are 
there,  after  all  they  are  the  surest  sign  of  life,  of  a  Church 
haying  something  in  her,  being  a  reality,  being  solid. 
They  show  that  her  doctrine  is  not  mere  sound, — that  it 
has  a  spirit  in  it ;  they  show  that  she  is  animated, — that 
she  is  not  a  corpse,  a  husk.  Learning,  science,  intellec¬ 
tual  refinement,  and  many  of  the  human  media  by  which 
a  Church  expresses  and  adorns  its  spiritual  life,  there 
may  not  he ;  hut  if  the  Christian  type  has  worked,  and 
an  awful  unspeakable  moulding  power  has  resided  within 
her,  seizing  human  souls  as  if  it  were  some  physical 
principle,  mastering  and  overwhelming  weak  and  carnal 
nature  in  them,  and  making  them  new  creatures,  with 
thoughts  and  hopes  estranged  from  earth,  and  passing 
through  this  world  as  through  a  wilderness, — if  some 
powerful  mould  within  her  has  formed  wonderful  spiritual 
beings  on  whom  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  have  gazed 
in  reverence  and  awe,  this  shows  something  more  than 
the  dead  dry  husk  and  shell  of  a  Church.  This  presence 
of  the  Spirit,  and  these  deep  movements  of  grace,  the 
Eastern  Church  can  show.  She  has  formed  saints  and 
holy  men  in  all  their  various  gradations ;  has  produced 
great  spiritual  deeds  of  self-denial,  love,  and  fear;  and, 
from  the  highest  and  severest  ascetic  down  to  the 
humblest  of  the  Church’s  flock,  has  trained  in  every 
age,  and  does  train  now,  souls  for  heaven.  If  she  has 
done  this,  she  has  been  a  living  Church.  We  may  be 
answered,  perhaps,  that  a  congregation  of  Baptists  pro¬ 
duces  good  men  amongst  them,  and  yet  is  not  the  Church. 


Theory  of  Development. 


137 


But  this  is  no  answer  to  meet  the  case.  Here  is  a  body 
that  has  the  whole  external  form  and  system  of  a  Church 
which  the  early  Church  exhibited ;  and  which  is  the 
representative,  by  uninterrupted  descent,  of  the  ancient 
Eastern  Church.  It  believes  and  teaches  the  self-same 
dogmatic  Christianity  which  the  ancient  Church  did. 
There  is  not  the  smallest  question  that  the  dogmatic 
creed  of  the  Eastern  Christian  at  this  day  is  the  creed  of 
St.  Basil  and  St.  Chrysostom.  Now  this  whole  corporate 
and  doctrinal  identity  with  the  ancient  Church  the  Baptist 
congregation  wants ;  and  those  appearances  of  life  are  a 
mere  isolated  note  in  the  case  of  the  Baptist  congregation, 
which  come  in  to  complete  a  whole  body  of  other  notes  of 
a  Church  in  the  Eastern  case.  Moreover,  it  may  do  very 
well  as  an  off-hand  answer,  to  say  that  all  sects  can  pro¬ 
duce  their  good  men ;  but  the  note  of  sanctitv  which 
belongs  to  the  Eastern  Church  is  a  totally  different  one 
from  what  sectarian  piety  affords  us.  We  are  concerned 
with  a  question  as  to  a  phenomenon  here — the  apparent 
life  of  the  Greek  Church  ;  and  we  say  that  Eastern  sanctity 
is  one  phenomenon,  and  what  we  call  sectarian  piety  is 
another;  and  one  phenomenon  cannot  be  put  aside  by 
identifying  it  with  another,  which  is  totally  different 
from  it. 

Indeed,  the  controversial  line  taken  upon  this  subject  is 
one  which  we  must  notice.  It  is  objected,  on  the  part  of 
the  Boman  controversialist,  to  the  English  Church  that 
she  does  not  exhibit  notes  of  sanctity.  Her  defenders 
reply  that  she  has  them,  though  in  her  own  form,  and 
though  she  cannot  show  the  same  extraordinary  mani¬ 
festations  in  individuals  which  some  other  Churches  can. 
And  they  are  told  that  this  is  not  enough  ;  that  the  truth 
is,  we  have  no  saints,  and  that,  therefore,  we  are  not  a 
Church.  With  this  decision  the  controversy  steps  over 


1 38  Theory  of  Development. 

to  the  East.  Now  the  Eastern  Church  on  this  subject 
produces  what  is  something  like  evidence.  The  Greek 
points  to  twelve  thick  volumes,  one  for  each  month,  con¬ 
taining  the  Hagiology  of  his  Church.  We  open  the 
volumes,  and  there,  at  any  rate,  are  portrayed  real  saints. 
There  is  no  distinction  there  between  sanctity  and  its  form, 
to  be  offered  and  to  be  overruled ;  there  are  real  saints, 
spirit,  form,  and  all ;  men  who  lived  literally  in  caves  and 
dens  of  the  earth,  who  passed  life  in  spiritual  contempla¬ 
tion,  or  in  converting  rude  tribes  to  Christ;  men  who  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  monastery  in  the  wild  forest,  and 
whose  cells,  hollowed  with  their  own  hands  out  of  the 
solid  rock,  or  mountain,  or  lake  side,  far  from  human 
habitations,  still  collected  disciples,  attracted  by  the  fame 
of  their  sanctity,  to  hear  their  voice,  and  crowds  of  simple 
folk  to  touch  their  garments.  Here  are  the  lives  of  liolv 

O  Kj 

monks,  hermits,  bishops,  from  a  thousand  years  ago  to 
recent  times,  the  canonised  saints  of  the  Eastern  Church, 
and  as  true  and  unquestionable  saints  as  any  Church  can 
show.  And  what  does  it  gain  to  the  Eastern  Church  in 
the  controversy  to  show  them  ?  Nothing.  The  advocate 
of  Eome  as  completely  excludes  the  Greek  Church  from 
the  universal  Church  of  Christ  as  if  it  had  not  one  single 
saint  to  show.  The  line  is  the  same  with  respect  to 
miracles.  The  English  Church  is  told  she  has  not  the 
note  of  miracles.  But  the  Eastern  Church  has  the  note 
of  them,  upon  quite  as  good  evidence  as  the  Boman  ;  and 
it  does  her  no  good  whatever  to  prove  it.  No  wonder  if 
some  people  think  all  controversy  hollow  and  unreal  when 
they  see  arguers  simply  dealing  out  their  arguments  for 
the  occasion,  and  allowing  no  weight  to,  and  claiming  the 
greatest  weight  for,  the  same  evidence  at  the  same  time, 
according  as  others  or  themselves  are  to  be  benefited  by  it. 

But  to  return  to  what  we  were  saying  about  the  char- 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 39 


acter  of  the  phenomenon  here  before  ns  :  for  our  own  part, 
we  look  in  vain  to  discern  any  essential  distinction  as  to 
the  note  of  sanctity  (including  miracles  in  that  note) 
between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Church.  We  see 
on  each  side  a  vast  collection  of  wonderful  saintliness, 
accompanied  by  a  considerable  amount  of  miraculous 
agency,  asserted  and  recorded,  and  professing  to  be  so  upon 
evidence.  It  would  disturb  a  devotional  mind,  and  make 
the  latitudinarian  smile,  to  attempt  to  establish  any  solid 
distinction,  either  as  to  evidence  or  internal  character, 
between  the  miracles  of  the  Eastern  and  the  Western 
Church.  Moreover,  at  the  Council  of  Elorence,  as  the 
terms  of  the  meditated  reconciliation  implied,  the  Church 
of  Home  herself  was  quite  willing  to  recognise  this  sanctity. 
She  was  willing  to  allow  the  whole  Eastern  Church  to 
retain  its  calendar,  and  go  on  in  future  exactly  as  it  had 
gone  on  in  this  respect ;  to  continue  regarding  as  un¬ 
doubted  Christian  saints  the  self-same  persons  whom  it 
had  all  along  regarded  as  such,  and  paying  them,  to  all 
time,  the  same  honours, — observing  their  festivals,  chanting 
their  praises,  recording  their  miracles,  invoking  their  in¬ 
tercession.  In  fact,  the  Eoman  Church  was  willing  to 
receive  the  whole  body  of  Eastern  canonised  saints.  We 
must  add,  that  to  be  willing  to  do  so  was  to  be  willing  to 
allow  the  real  churchship  of  the  Church  of  which  they 
were  members.  How  could  they  be  made  Christian  saints, 
unless  they  were  made  members  of  the  Christian  Church  ; 
and  how  could  they  be  made  members  of  the  Christian 
Church  after  their  death,  if  they  were  not  so  during  their 
life  ?  How  can  a  fact  be  created  ex  post  facto,  and  a  thing 
which  was  not,  be  afterwards  made  to  have  been  ? — an  act 
of  power  which,  Aristotle  says,  the  gods  themselves  are 
not  equal  to.  It  may  be  said  that  it  is  possible  to  suppose 
them  members  of  the  Christian  Church  in  heaven,  with- 


140 


Theory  of  Development. 


out  supposing  them  to  have  been  members  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  upon  earth.  But  it  is  the  latter  of  these  two 
which  the  Church  of  Borne  was  willing  to  allow  the 
Easterns  to  believe,  and  not  the  former  only.  It  is  the 
latter  of  these  two  beliefs  which  is  involved  in  the  act  of 
a  whole  Church  keeping  up  the  memory  of  departed 
saints.  You  allow  a  whole  Church  to  go  on  taking  the 
same  view  of  a  certain  body  of  saints  which  it  had  done ; 
but  it  had  always  regarded  them  as  members  of  the 
earthly  Church,  therefore  it  is  allowed  to  continue  to  do 
so.  And  really,  without  anything  more  being  wanted,  if 
you  allow  millions  of  Christians  to  go  on  reciting  the  holy 
deeds  and  miracles  of  their  departed  saints,  observing  their 
festivals,  and  dwelling  in  thought  upon  the  examples  of 
their  earthly  lives ;  to  say  that  you  need  not  allow  them, 
in  doing  so,  to  regard  them  as  members  of  the  same  earthly 
Church  as  themselves,  would  be  at  once  inane  and  trivial. 
On  the  principle  here  mentioned,  the  Church  of  Borne 
could  canonise  the  Hindoo  saints  on  converting  a  Hindoo 
population.  You  may  suppose  the  Hindoo  saints,  as 
saints  in  heaven ;  “  for  in  every  nation,  he  that  feareth 
God  and  worketh  righteousness  is  accepted  of  Him.”  But 
you  could  not  make  them  Christian  saints ;  and  why  not, 
but  because  they  were  not  members  of  the  Christian 
Church  upon  earth  ?  If  then  you  do  recognise  a  body  of 
Christian  saints,  you  do  imply  that  they  were  members  of 
such  a  Church. 

The  substantial  subject,  however,  with  which  we  are  con¬ 
cerned  throughout  these  reflections,  is  simply  the  sanctity 
of  the  Eastern  Church,  as  an  ordinary  and  common  sense 
fact  discernible  in  it,  without  bringing  in  other  aspects  or 
considerations.  All  we  want  to  say  is,  that  there  are  dis¬ 
cernible  in  the  Eastern  Church  real,  and  high,  and  solid 
effects  of  some  spiritual  life,  as  we  must  needs  suppose  it 


Theory  of  Development. 


141 


to  be ;  that  its  sanctity  is  upon  the  primitive  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  type  ;  that  it  holds  up  the  standard  of  Christian 
mortification  to  its  people  ;  and  that  that  standard  is  not 
a  practically  unproductive  one,  but  has  had  all  along,  and 
has  now,  its  genuine  fruits.  If  that  Church  exhibits  the 
same  spiritual  marks  which  the  Boman  Church  can,  the 
latter  cannot  call  her  decayed,  or  her  doctrine  a  dead  and 
lifeless  one ;  and  such  Christianity  cannot  be  put  aside 
under  the  designation  of  “  an  inveterate  odour.”  Certainly, 
Eastern  sanctity  shows  marks  of  the  soil  on  which  it  grows ; 
and  the  world  is  much  mistaken  if  Boman  sanctity  does 
not  do  the  same.  Eastern  sanctity,  too,  presents  features 
of  uncouthness,  rudeness,  strange  simplicity — in  a  word, 
some  barbarian  features  to  the  European  eye ;  but  we 
have  yet  to  learn  that  the  Gospel  distinguishes,  so  long  as 
men  love  God  and  hate  their  own  flesh,  whether  they  are 
barbarians  or  not.  Many  a  saint  of  the  early  Church  must 
be  rejected  on  such  a  rule.  The  Eastern  Church  has  gone 
on  comparatively  outside  of  the  great  movement  of 
intellect,  science,  and  civilisation  in  the  world ;  and, 
therefore,  its  Christianity  is  open  to  remarks  on  this  head. 
But  it  is  a  small  thing  to  be  judged  of  by  man’s  judgment. 
Mr.  Newman  must  permit  us  to  say  that  his  judgment  on 
this  head  has  signs  of  being  something  very  like  “  man’s 
judgment.”  He  refuses,  in  a  certain  case,  to  see  and 
recognise  the  Christian  type,  because  it  does  not  come 
before  him  in  the  Latin  shape,  and  with  the  accompani¬ 
ments  of  intellectual  grace  and  refinement  which  it  has 
incorporated  on  its  European  area.  It  comes  before  him 
in  the  shape  which  antiquity,  and  not  “  movement,”  has 
attached  to  it ;  and  he  puts  it  aside  under  the  name  of  “an 
inveterate  odour,”  the  “venerable  peculiarity”  of  a  parti¬ 
cular  population  ;  analogous,  it  might  seem,  to  any  case  of 
old  custom,  law,  or  costume.  This  is  “  man’s  judgment,” 


142 


Theory  of  Development. 


we  must  say.  The  early  Church  gloried  in  a  religion 
which  made  all  men  equal — the  refined  Greek  or  Eoman, 
and  the  barbarian,  whose  name  had  but  just  reached  the 
threshold  of  the  civilised  world — absolutely  equal.  The 
genius  of  Christianity  broke  down  the  barriers  of  artificial 
types  and  standards  in  character,  and  with  a  holy  violence 
levelled  the  formations  of  human  genius,  philosophy,  and 
will,  to  make  way  for  one  substantial,  fundamental 
character  for  man.  That  was  love.  Pervading  all  Chris¬ 
tian  natures,  and,  running  the  same  invariable  substance 
through  all  outer  character,  and  all  modifications  of  human 
sentiment  and  feeling,  the  principle  of  love  was  his  moral 
being  and  life  ;  and  one  universal  type  converted  all  other 
distinctions  into  childishness  and  nullity.  Eudeness, 
civilisation,  ignorance,  science,  uncouthness,  grace,  were 
all  one — for  love  was  deeper  than  all,  and  men  were  new- 
formed,  “  after  the  image  of  Him  who  had  created  them  ; 
where  there  was  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor 
uncircumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but 
Christ  was  all,  and  in  all.” 

To  return  to  our  main  subject. 

We  have  examined  the  presumptive  part  of  Mr.  New¬ 
man's  argument  for  the  Papal  Infallibility.  It  is  not  our 
intention  to  follow  him  into  the  historical,  or  examine  how 
far  his  original  presumption  is  sustained  by  the  evidence 
of  fact.  That  has  been  already  ably,  acutely,  and  in  the 
most  fair,  candid,  and  tempered  tone  of  controversy,  done 
by  a  writer  whose  work  was  noticed  in  the  last  number  of 
this  Eeview.  Mr.  Newman  himself  admits  that  his  pre¬ 
sumption  is  the  strongest  part  of  his  argument,  and 
alludes  to  the  historical  evidence  for  the  Papacy  as  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  and  secondary  part  of  it.  “All,”  he  says, 
“  depends  on  the  strength  of  that  presumption.” 1  “  The 

1  Page  170. 


Theory  of  Development. 


143 


absolute  need  of  a  spiritual  supremacy  is  at  present  the 
strongest  of  arguments  in  favour  of  its  supply.”  1  With 
respect  to  the  historical  evidence — the  evidence,  that  is, 
of  early  Church  history  to  its  divine  institution,  as  a 
matter  of  fact — he  is  content  if  it  only  gives  a  negative 
support :  “  Supposing  there  is  otherwise  good  reason  for 
saying  that  the  Papal  supremacy  is  part  of  Christianity, 
there  is  nothing  in  early  Church  history  to  contradict  it.”  2 
Having  gone  through  these  two  stages  of  argument  on 
the  main  question  which  Mr.  Newman’s  Essay  brings 
before  us,  we  approach  a  third.  It  has  appeared  that 
the  principle  of  development  in  itself,  however  enlarged 
upon,  cannot  be  any  pledge  for  absolute  correctness  in 
development,  or  secure  the  truth  of  a  certain  mass  of 
developments  which  has  grown  up.  It  has  appeared  that 
for  the  existence  of  what  alone  can  secure  this  absolute 
correctness  in  developing,  and  alone  can  prove  the  absolute 
truth  of  certain  developments,  as  well  as  the  right  to 
impose  them  as  articles  of  faith  ; — for  the  existence  of  a 
constant,  infallible,  developing  authority,  or  standing 
revelation  in  the  Church — the  argument  advanced  is  an 
insufficient  one ;  inasmuch  as  this  argument  is  based  on  a 
presumption  for  which  we  have  no  warrant.  The  argu¬ 
ment  of  the  Essay  now  takes  another  line,  and  one  of  a 
very  different  character  from  what  it  has  hitherto.  .  It 
adopts  the  line  of  a  reductio  ad  absurdum.  It  asserts  that 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  developments ; 
and  that  therefore  we  must  either  give  them  up,  or  admit 
that  continuing  developing  authority  in  the  Church  which 
established  them.  It  instances  the  Mcene  Creed.  That, 
it  proceeds,  is  regarded  by  both  sides  as  essential,  and 
that  is  a  development ;  we  are  therefore  committed  already 
to  the  principle  of  development,  and  must  either  receive 
1  Page  127.  2  Page  170. 


144  Theory  of  Development. 

the  whole  cycle  of  Eoman  doctrine,  or  be  prepared  to  give 
up  Hicene.  It  says,  in  short,  that  we  have  no  standing 
ground  between  Rome  and  Infidelity.  Let  us  admit  then, 
though  not  logically  required  to  do,  the  conditional  truth 
of  this  argument ;  we  then  say,  truth  is  the  end  of  con¬ 
troversy,  and  this  is  a  fair  argument  if  its  fundamental 
fact  is  a  true  one.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  considerable  responsibility  attaches  to  the  use  of 
such  an  argument  as  this. 

How  here  the  first  question  to  be  settled  is  obviously 
that  of  the  sense  in  which  the  word  development  is  used. 
The  creed  which  contains  our  fundamental  articles  of  faith 
is  called  a  development ;  in  what  sense  is  it  meant  that 
it  was  one  ? 

One  sense  of  development  makes  it  a  simply  explana¬ 
tory  process.  Development  is  explanation ;  explanation 
is  development.  A  man  in  conversation  makes  an 
assertion,  which  another  misapprehends ;  in  reply,  he 
explains  the  meaning,  or  develops  the  meaning  of  his  asser¬ 
tion.  His  meaning  is  exactly  the  same  with  what  it  was 
before ;  it  is  in  order  to  show  what  it  was  before  that  the 
explanation  is  given ;  the  meaning  before  the  explanation 
or  development  of  it,  and  the  meaning  after,  are  by  the 
very  nature  and  aim  of  the  process  the  same.  It  so 
happens  that  language,  or  the  medium  by  which  we  con¬ 
vey  our  ideas  to  one  another,  is  capable  of  misinterpreta¬ 
tion  ;  we  have  therefore  often  to  alter  or  add  to  the 
language  in  which  we  expressed  an  idea,  and  express  it 
anew, — not  because  our  idea  itself  was  imperfect,  or  was 
different  at  all  from  what  it  is,  but  because  some  person 
has  construed  our  language  in  a  way  in  which  we  did  not 
intend  it  to  be  construed.  This  explanation  again,  inas¬ 
much  as  language  still  continues  our  medium,  may  be 
misinterpreted,  and  a  second  explanation  become  necessary 


Theory  of  Development. 


145 


for  tlie  benefit  of  some  second  objector.  A  third,  a  fourth, 
a  fifth,  an  indefinite  number  of  explanations  may  succeed 
on  the  same  principle  which  produced  the  first.  An  idea 
may  thus,  in  course  of  discussion,  be  said  to  be  developed  ; 
i.e.  may  go  through  fresh  successional  stages  of  language, 
according  as  preceding  stages  are  found  not  adequate  to 
prevent  it  from  being  mistaken  and  confused  with  some 
other  idea,  different  from,  or  short  of  it.  Each  miscon¬ 
struction,  as  it  shows  itself,  makes  a  fresh  defence 
necessary  :  when  three  or  four  defensive  explanations  have 
been  made,  these  again  have  to  be  reconciled  to  each 
other :  and  the  creation  of  language  becomes  larger  and 
larger.  The  case  is  not  unfrequent  of  a  single  arguer 
having  to  maintain  in  conversation  a  particular  point 
against  a  whole  circle  of  opponents.  He  adheres  firmly, 
consistently,  and  with  all  unity  and  simplicity,  to  the  one 
point  which  he  defends,  and  is  only  bent  on  defending  it. 
But,  with  that  one  object  in  view,  what  a  vast  formation 
of  language  does  he  raise  as  he  goes  on  !  what  distinctions 
accumulate,  and  what  protests  and  safeguards  grow  up 
out  of,  and  surround  the  original  statement  !  He  would 
be  surprised  at  the  end  of  the  argument  to  see  the  edifice 
he  had  built.  And  yet  nobody  would  say  that  his  idea 
had  altered,  and  was  not  just  the  same  as  it  was  when  he 
began.  It  wra,s  for  the  very  purpose  of  so  maintaining 
it,  that  he  explained  it  again  and  again  anew,  as  miscon¬ 
struction  threatened  it,  and  so  formed  all  that  body  of 
expression  around  it ;  and  a  bystander  will  make  the 
special  remark  on  such  an  occasion,  that  the  arguer  has 
kept  to  his  own  point,  amidst  a  varied  and  complex 
opposition.  Cases  of  legal  amplification  illustrate  the 
same  principle.  What  a  testator  or  seller  of  an  estate 
wants  to  do,  is  able  to  be  expressed  in  two  words  for  any 
fair  man’s  understanding ;  but  the  law  has  the  responsi- 

Iv 


146 


Theory  of  Development. 


bility  of  guarding  against  all  the  possible  constructions 
which  may  be  put  upon  a  statement,  and  not  only  that  of 
satisfying  an  ordinary  and  simple  construction.  The  case, 
in  short,  is  a  common  everyday  one,  in  which  the  idea  in 
a  person’s  mind  is  exactly  the  same,  whether  more 
shortly  and  simply,  or  more  fully  and  guardedly  expressed. 
It  is  not  meant  that  it  may  not  become  clearer  by  such 
a  process  ;  but  the  additional  clearness  is  an  external 
argumentative  one ;  not  affecting  its  substance,  or  making 
it,  as  regards  natural  straightforward  thinking,  any  other 
than  the  identical  idea  which  it  was  before.  Such  is 
simply  explanatory  development. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  kind  of  development 
which  is  a  positive  increase  of  the  substance  of  the  thing 
developed, — a  fresh  formation  not  contained  in,  though 
growing  out  of,  some  original  matter.  The  developed 
substance  here  is  not  the  same  actual  one  with  the 
original,  but  a  very  different  one.  Growth-out- of  is  a 
wholly  different  thing  from  identity-with.  The  develop¬ 
ment  of  a  seed  into  a  plant  is  one  of  growth,  for  example  ; 
and  it  does  not  carry  with  it  identity.  It  is  a  pure 
metaphor  by  which  we  say  the  acorn  is  the  oak  ;  it  is  so, 
if  by  saying  so  be  meant  that  the  acorn  is  the  thing  in 
consequence  of  which  (coupled  with  other  causes)  an  oak 
will  exist,  but  it  is  not  identical  with  it  actually.  As 
things  actual,  things  cognisable,  an  acorn  is  one  thing,  an 
oak  is  another :  the  one  is  a  -smooth  oval  piece  of 
vegetable  matter,  about  an  inch  long,  and  of  that  consist¬ 
ency  and  appearance  of  which  it  is  ;  and  the  other  is  a 
large,  wide-spreading  tree,  with  rough  bark,  and  thick 
branches  bearing  leaves.  When  one  of  these  phenomena 
exists,  indeed,  the  other  does  not,  and  this  succession  in 
two  things  is  able  to  be  called  the  existence  of  one  and 
the  same  thing  in  different  stages ;  but  it  is  self-evident 


Theory  of  Development. 


147 


that  they  are  not  actually  one  and  the  same  thing,  and 
that,  however  intimate  may  be  the  relation  of  growth  in 
the  two,  they  have  not  the  relation  of  identity.  This  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  common  and  natural  sense  of  develop¬ 
ment  ;  the  word,  either  from  etymological  or  from  conven¬ 
tional  reasons,  is  suggestive  of  an  actual  enlargement  of 
substance  in  the  thing  developed.  Power  develops,  i.e. 
becomes  actually  larger  ;  there  is  more  of  it.  Eome  was 
a  small  power  at  first ;  it  developed  into  a  larger  one. 
The  “  march  of  mind  ”  development  is  of  this  kind ;  it 
consists  of  new  ideas  and  forms  of  thoughts,  new  dis¬ 
coveries  in  science,  new  social  comforts  and  conveniences 
arising.  Philosophical  development  may  be  partly 
explanatory  only,  partly  an  actually  enlarging  one.  Such 
are  two  sorts  of  development ;  that  of  explanation  simply, 
and  that  of  substantial  growth.  The  one  begins  with  what 
the  other  ends  in ;  explanation  starts  with  its  substance, 
growth  arrives  at  its  substance  gradually.  In  growth  it 
is  the  ultimate  formation  of  all  which  is  the  substance  of 
the  thing  growing ;  the  substance  before  that  point  only 
existing  on  a  kind  of  antedating  view.  The  oak  is  the 
grown  oak,  not  the  acorn  ;  the  Eoman  empire  is  Augustan 
and  not  Eomulean  Eome.  The  original  thing  is  not  the 
real,  the  substantial  thing,  in  this  kind  of  development ; 
it  is  only  the  imperfect,  half-existing,  ambiguous,  and 
struggling  element  of  future  reality  and  proper  being. 

Now,  of  these  two  kinds  of  development,  the  former  is 
of  course  conceded  in  the  case  before  us.  All  allow  that 
Christian  fundamental  truth  has  been  explained.  The 
whole  of  scientific  theology  is  an  explanatory  development 
of  it.  To  take  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  the  truth 
that  God  became  man.  A  whole  body  of  Christian 
theology,  from  the  short  decrees  of  the  earliest  councils  to 
the  full  volumes  of  the  Schoolmen,  explain  this  truth. 


148 


Theory  of  Development . 


The  former  guarded  it  from  misconstruction  ;  the  latter, 
besides  this,  brought  out,  in  detail,  the  logical  contents  of 
the  truth.  There  are  inexhaustible  logical  contents  in  it. 
God  comprehends  all  that  God  is ;  man  comprehends  all 
that  man  is.  All  that  was  logically  comprehended  under 
these  two  terms  was  brought  out ;  and  all  that  was  logically 
comprehended  in  the  idea  of  the  union  of  the  two  was 
brought  out.  There  is  question  upon  question  in  Aquinas, 
j De  Modo  Unionis  Verbi  Incccrnati ,  extending  from  the 
most  fundamental  to  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  truth  : — 
“  Utrum  Unio  Verbi  Incarnati  sit  facta  in  natura  vet 
'persona ;  Utrum  Unio  Verbi  Incccrnati  sit  facta  in  Sup- 
posito  vet  Hypostasi ;  Utrum  Hypostasis  Cliristi  post  Incar- 
nationem  sit  composita  ;  Utrum  natura  humana  fuerit 
unita  Verbo  Accident aliter ;  Utrum  Unio  sit  aliquid 
creatum ;  Utrum  idem  quod  assumptio ;  Utrum  facta  per 
gratiam  ;  Utrum  merita  prcecesserunt  ;  Utrum  gratia 
Unionis  fuerit  homini  Christo  naturalist  There  follow 
questions,  u  De  Modo  Unionis  ex  parte  Personae  assumentis; 
and  then  questions,  “  De  Modo  Unionis  ex  parte  Naturae 
assumptce;  ”  the  former  runs  out  into  the  questions,  “  Utrum 
Personae  Divince  conveniat  assumere  naturam  creatam; 
Utrum  Naturae  Divince  conveniat;  Utrum  una  Persona 
sine  alia  possit  assumere ;  Utrum  plures  Personae  Divince 
possint ;  U trum  una  Persona  Divina  possit  assumere  duas 
naturas  humanas  ;  ”  and  many  others.  The  latter  runs  out 
into  the  questions,  “  Utrum  Filius  Dei  assumpserit  per¬ 
sonam  ;  Utrum  assumpserit  hominem  ;  Utrum  assumpserit 
humanam  naturam  abstractam  ab  omnibus  individuis,  vel 
in  omnibus  individuis.”  Then  succeed  questions,  “  De 
modo  Unionis  quantum  ad  ordinem ;  Utrum  anima  d 
Filio  Dei  prius  fuerit  assumpta  quam  caro  ;  Utrum  tota 
natura  fuerit  assumpta  median  tibus  partibus ,  vel  partes 
mediante  toto  V  Questions,  “  De  Gratia  Christi  ;  Utrum  in 


Theory  of  Development. 


149 


Christo  gratia  habitualis ;  Utrum  virtutes  ;  Utrum  fides  ; 
spes,  timor :  ”  Questions,  “  Do  Scientia  Christi ;  Be  Scientia 
Christi  in  Communi  ;  Be  Scientia  Beata  Animce  Cliristi  ; 
Be  Scientia  Indita ;  Be  Scientia  Acquisita Questions, 
“  Be  Potentia  Animce  Christi ” — all  running  out  into  their 
respective  subdivisions.  Here,  in  short,  is  a  field  of 
explanatory  theology,  which  takes  the  idea  of  the  Incarna¬ 
tion,  and  brings  out  all  the  possible  inferences  and  aspects 
which  can  be  elicited  from  it,  some  nearer  and  more 
obvious,  others  remoter  and  minuter,  till  the  subject 
multiplies  into  a  whole  wrnrld  of  subtle,  and,  so  to  call  it, 
microscopic  theological  science.  But  such  manifold 
evolutions  do  not  profess  to  add  anything  to  the  sub¬ 
stantial  idea  of  the  Incarnation, — the  truth  that  God 
became  man.  There  is  a  oreat  difference  between  the  clear- 
ness,  accuracy,  and  circumstantiality  in  the  intellectual 
image  of  the  doctrine,  which  such  an  explanatory  develop¬ 
ment  as  this  produces,  and  the  intellectual  image  in  an 
ordinary  Christian  mind  unversed  in  scholastic  divinity ; 
but  the  doctrine  entertained  is  the  same  identical  one. 

But  it  is  the  latter  kind  of  development,  that  of  growth 
and  not  that  of  explanation  only,  which  Mr.  Newman’s 
argument  desiderates  in  the  present  case.  His  argument 
parallels  the  Boman  doctrinal  developments  with  the 
doctrinal  development  at  Nice.  The  latter,  therefore,  to 
make  the  argument  hold,  must  be  a  development  in  the 
same  sense  as  the  Boman  ones.  That  is  to  say,  that  as 
the  doctrines  of  purgatory  and  the  Papal  Infallibility  are 
obviously  positive  substantial  advances  upon  the  doctrines 
of  the  early  Church  on  the  subjects  of  the  intermediate 
state  and  the  Boman  see,  so  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity 
of  our  Lord,  as  declared  at  the  Nicene  Council,  was  a 
positive  substantial  advance  upon  the  earlier  teaching  of 
the  Church  with  respect  to  our  Lord’s  nature.  It  is  not 


150  Theory  of  Development . 

enough  for*  the  consistency  of  this  argument,  to  say  that 
the  doctrine  as  to  our  Lord’s  nature  was  explained, 
defended,  and  secured  by  additional  language  from  mis¬ 
construction  at  that  Council :  it  is  necessary  to  say  that 
the  doctrine  positively  itself  grew,  was  itself  more  than  it 
had  been,  more  at  the  Nicene  epoch  than  it  had  been 
formerly.  No  instance  of  simple  explanation,  however 
extensive  and  copious,  can  afford  a  parallel  case  to  that 
positive  growth  to  which  Mr.  Newman  has  to  find  a 
parallel.  According  to  Mr.  Newman,  those  Eoman  de¬ 
velopments  to  which  he  parallels  the  Nicene,  though 
called  developments,  still  are  distinct  doctrines1  from  the 
elementary  ones  on  the  same  subject;  that  is  to  say, 
other  truths  than  what  were  known  before,  different  pieces 
of  knowledge  from  former  ones  ;  a  person  might  know  the 
former  and  not  know  the  latter :  when  he  comes  to  know 
them,  he  knows  something  which  he  did  not  know ;  he 
has  positive  fresh  truth,  a  substantial  idea  in  his  head, 
which  he  had  not  before.  Consequently  to  the  Nicene 
doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  divinity,  for  the  parallel  to  hold, 
the  same  must  apply.  There  is,  first  of  all,  a  development 
which  is  identical  with  simply  understanding  a  statement. 
“  When  it  is  declared,”  says  Mr.  Newman,  “  that  the 
‘  Word  became  flesh,’  three  wide  questions  open  upon  us 
at  the  very  announcement.  What  is  meant  by  ‘  the 
Word?’  what  by  ‘flesh?’  what  by  ‘became?’  The 
answers  to  these  involve  a  process  of  investigation,  and 
are  developments  ;”2  but  this  kind  of  development  will  not 
do  here.  There  is  then  a  further  development  which 
explains  a  statement,  and  carries  it  into  additional  and 
more  formal  statements — “  a  multitude  of  propositions, 
which  gather  round  the  inspired  sentence  of  which  they 
come,  giving  it  externally  the  form  of  a  doctrine.”3  And 
1  Page  55.  2  Page  97.  3  Page  98. 


Theory  of  Development .  1 5  1 

this  development  will  not  do  here  either.  There  must  be 
more  here.  There  must,  in  the  case  of  the  Nicene 
doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  nature,  be  positive  growth  of,  and 
such  substantial  addition  as  growth  implies  to,  a  former 
elementary  doctrine  of  the  Church  on  that  subject. 

This  kind  of  development  and  this  basis  of  essential 
doctrine  being  necessary  for  Mr.  Newman’s  argument  in 
the  present  instance,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  line  of 
thought  which  runs  through  his  Essay  as  a  whole  does 
not  keep  back  such  a  theological  position,  and  that  his 
language  extends  the  hypothesis  of  growth  to  the  funda¬ 
mental  articles  of  Christian  faith,  making  them  to  be 
developments  from  some  former  elementary  and  seminal 
doctrines  on  the  subjects  to  which  they  refer ;  just  as  the 
Papal  Infallibility  is  made  the  development  of  the  early 
respect  to  the  see  of  St.  Peter,  and  just  as  the  doctrine  of 
purgatory,  of  the  deification  of  St.  Mary,  and  others,  are 
made  the  developments  of  former  shadowy,  primordial, 
and  scattered  anticipations  of  those  doctrines.  He  puts 
both  these  classes  of  doctrines  on  the  same  ground  with 
respect  to  development.  “  That  the  hypothesis  he  adopts,” 
he  says,  “  accounts  not  only  for  the  Athanasian  Creed,  but 
for  the  creed  of  Pope  Pius,  is  no  fault  of  those  who  adopt 
it.  No  one  has  power  over  the  issues  of  his  principles  ; 
we  cannot  manage  our  argument,  and  have  as  much  of  it 
as  we  please  and  no  more.”1  Reverse  the  order  of  the  two 
credenda ,  and  the  hypothesis  he  adopts  accounts  not  only 
for  the  creed  of  Pope  Pius,  but  also  for  the  Athanasian 
creed.  The  same  appeal  to  Church  testimony,  he  pro¬ 
ceeds,  “  cannot  at  once  condemn  St.  Bernard  and  defend 
St.  Athanasius  ;”2  that  is  to  say,  that  if  the  former  taught 
what  was  new  about  the  Blessed  Virgin,  the  latter  taught 
what  was  no  less  new  about  our  Lord’s  divinity.  With 
1  Page  29.  2  Page  9. 


152 


Theory  of  Development. 


this  alternative,  he  boldly  meets  the  use  of  the  Vincentian 
rule,  “  Quocl  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  ab  omnibush  The 
Vincentian  rule,  as  applied  by  English  divines,  claims  for 
certain  doctrines  the  evidence  of  early  and  general  testi¬ 
mony  ;  testimony  to  the  fact  that  they  were  originally 
taught  by  the  Apostles,  and  received  through  successive 
generations  of  Christians  ultimately  from  their  hands. 
It  asserts  this  of  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  divinity 
taught  by  the  Nicene  and  Athanasian  Creeds,  and  of 
other  doctrines.  Mr.  Newman  does  not  meet  this  appli¬ 
cation  of  the  rule  with  a  direct,  but  a  conditional  answer. 
He  says,  if  the  rule  proves  the  one  set  of  doctrines, — the 
English, — it  proves  the  other  too,  the  Roman ;  if  it  does 
not  prove  the  latter,  it  does  not  prove  the  former  either. 
He  meets  the  rule  itself  with  a  demand  for  fairness  and 
impartiality  in  its  application,  whether  in  the  negative 
or  affirmative,  and  protests  against  the  “Lesbian”  use  of 
it,  upon  which  English  divines  have  proceeded.  This 
conditional  answer,  reduced  into  a  direct  one,  is  simply 
that  the  rule  does  not  prove  the  later  doctrines,  and  there¬ 
fore  does  not  prove  the  earlier  either.  His  application  of 
the  rule  is  negative  in  the  former  case ;  and  is  therefore 
negative  in  the  latter  also.  Indeed  what  he  professes  to 
supply  in  this  Essay — it  is  his  very  object  in  writing  it — 
is  a  basis  for  later  Roman  doctrines,  which  is  not  Vincen¬ 
tian  ;  that  is,  which  does  not  appeal  to  an  original  recep¬ 
tion,  but  to  a  law  of  growth  as  their  proof;  and  which 
does  not  assert  the  fact  of  an  early  belief,  but  gives  a 
rationale  for  a  later  one.  He  applies,  therefore,  this  law 
and  this  rationale  to  the  case  of  earlier  doctrines  as  well. 
He  claims  anticipations  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  doctrines; 
and  he  will  claim  anticipations  in  the  case  of  the  Nicene ; 
but  his  argument  does  not  claim  more  for  Hicene  than  for 
Roman,  and  asserts  in  either  case  the  existence  of  a 


Theory  of  Development. 


15 


seminal  elemental  doctrine,  anterior  to  that  of  the  subse¬ 
quently,  and  now,  established  one.  How  far  indeed  that 
early  received  doctrine  respecting  the  nature  of  our  Lord, 
for  example,  went,  or  what  it  was,  his  argument  does  not 
inform  us ;  but  its  parallel  does  not  require  more  than  a 
very  seminal  elemental  one.  The  seminal  doctrine  in  the 
case,  for  instance,  of  the  Papal  Infallibility  is  confessedly 
very  small  and  shadowy.  I11  the  case,  then,  of  the  Nicene 
doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  divinity,  it  need  be  no  more.  But, 
without  entering  into  the  . details  of  the  parallel,  the  argu¬ 
ment  asserts  with  sufficient  force  the  general  point,  that 
the  Vincentian  appeal  to  early  reception  cannot  be 
supported  in  the  case  of  the  Nicene,  any  more  than  it  can 
in  the  case  of  later  Boman  doctrine  ;  and  that  the  anterior 
and  primordial  idea  with  respect  to  our  Lord’s  nature,  is 
not,  going  by  such  evidence,  the  same  with,  but  the  seed 
of,  the  Athanasian  doctrine  on  that  subject. 

Thus  commences  and  proceeds,  then,  the  great  course 
of  doctrinal  development  which  this  Essay  maintains. 
Starting  from  the  small  and  seminal  beginning  of  primi¬ 
tive  doctrine,  it  gradually  grows  and  enlarges,  and  goes 
through  a  career  analogous  to  the  progress  of  science  and 
the  march  of  civilisation.  Truth  gains  fresh  augmenta¬ 
tions  at  Nice,  at  Ephesus,  at  Chalcedon,  at  the  Lateran 
Councils,  at  Florence,  at  Trent :  its  first  one  is  at  Nice, 
where  our  Lord’s  divinity  is  declared  ;  that  step  gained, 
in  course  of  some  centuries  it  proceeds,  under  the  infallible 
sanction,  to  establish  the  cultus  of  St.  Mary.  “  Christianity 
came  into  the  world  as  an  idea,”1  and  an  iffiperfect  idea.  In 
the  case  of  such  an  idea  arising,  “  Its  beginnings  are  no 
measure  of  its  capabilities  nor  its  scope.  At  first  no  one 
knows  what  it  is  or  wdiat  it  is  worth.  It  remains  perhaps 
for  a  time  quiescent ;  it  tries,  as  it  were,  its  limbs,  and 


1 54 


Theory  of  Development. 


proves  the  ground  under  it  and  feels  its  way.  ...  It  seems 
in  suspense  which  way  to  go  :  it  wavers.1  There  will  be  a 
time  of  confusion,  when  conceptions  and  misconceptions 
are  in  conflict ;  and  it  is  uncertain  whether  anything  is  to 
come  of  the  idea  at  all.”2  “  The  dogmatic  principle  was  in 
the  history  of  Christianity  what  conscience  is  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  an  individual  mind.  .  .  .  Conscience  mistakes  error 
for  truth;  and  yet  we  believe,  that  on  the  whole,  and 
even  in  those  cases  where  it  is  ill- instructed,  if  its  voice 
be  diligently  obeyed,  it  will  gradually  be  cleared,  simpli¬ 
fied,  and  perfected.  I  would  not  (but  he  gives  no  reason 
why  he  should  not)  imply  that  there  is  indistinctness 
so  great  as  this  in  the  knowledge  of  the  first  centuries/’3 
“  The  statements  of  the  early  fathers,”  we  are  told,  “  are  but 
tokens  of  the  multiplicity  of  openings  which  the  mind  of 
the  Church  was  making  into  the  great  treasure-house  of 
Truth;  real  openings,  but  incomplete  and  irregular.”4 
“  The  Church  went  forth  from  the  world  in  haste,  as  the 
Israelites  from  Egypt  f  with  their  dough  before  it  was 
leavened,  their  kneading-troughs  being  bound  up  in  the 
clothes  upon  their  shoulders/”5  But  out  of  this  indistinct, 
vague,  and  chaotic  state  of  the  original  Christian  idea,  at 
last  “  some  definite  form  of  doctrine  arose.”  When  one 
“generation  of  teachers  was  left  in  ignorance,  the  next 
generation  of  teachers  completed  their  work,  for  the  same 
unwearied  anxious  process  of  thought  went  on.”G  “The 
doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity,”  found  at  most  only  in  its 
“  rudiments  ” 7  in  earlier  writers,  grew  up.  When  they  had 
“  duly  secured  in  the  affections  of  the  faithful  the  supreme 
glory  and  worship  of  God  incarnate,  .  .  .  they  determined 
the  place  of  St.  Mary  in  our  reverence.” s  “The  conduct 
of  Popes,  Councils,  Fathers,  betokens  the  slow,  painful, 

1  Page  38.  3  Page  34S.  5  Page  107.  7  Page  396. 

2  Page  36.  4  Page  349.  c  Page  354.  8  Page  145. 


Theory  of  Development. 


155 


anxious  taking  np  of  new  elements  into  an  existing  body 
of  belief/’1  This  course  of  doctrine  moved  on;  and  time, 
which  “  is  necessary  for  the  full  comprehension  and  perfec¬ 
tion  of  great  ideas,”2  gradually  brought  out  and  substan¬ 
tiated  the  original  idea  of  Christianity. 

We  are  not  at  present  engaged  in  disproving,  but  only 
in  representing  Mr.  Newman’s  doctrine  of  development, 
and  showing  in  what  sense  he  uses  the  word.  We  will, 
however,  just  allude  to  one  or  two  arguments  used  about 
it.  The  analogy  of  the  development  of  the  Mosaic  dis¬ 
pensation  appears  to  us,  then,  an  obviously  untrue  one. 
The  Mosaic  dispensation  was  not  a  final  but  a  preparative 
one;  it  suggests  its  own  want  of  finality;  it  ever  prophesies 
its  own  issue  in  a  higher  revelation,  and  confesses  through¬ 
out  its  own  incompleteness  and  shortcomings.  The 
Christian  dispensation,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  final  one. 
As  a  dispensation  which  is  not  final  proceeds,  by  the  very 
force  of  the  hypothesis,  towards  something  which  is,  tends 
to  an  issue,  and  aspires  to  a  development  different  from, 
and  higher  than,  itself,  so  a  dispensation  which  is  final, 
by  the  very  force  of  the  hypothesis,  does  not.  The  Law 
was  a  shadow  of  good  things  to  come.  When  those  good 
things  came,  therefore,  they,  and  not  things  still  further 
on  and  beyond  them,  were  the  substance.  Otherwise  one 
side  of  a  relation  is  met  by  what  is  not  its  correlative  one  ; 
and  type  is  responded  to  by  type,  and  not  by  antitype. 
Substance  is  the  correspondent  to  shadow,  as  son  is  the 
correspondent  to  father,  giver  to  receiver,  ruler  to  subject : 
father  does  not  generate  father,  nor  shadow  introduce 
shadow.  The  Law’s  foreshadowings,  the  gradual  evolutions 
of  prophecy,  anticipation  strengthening,  type  becoming 
clearer,  a  preparation  growing  age  after  age  more  critical, 
and  step  by  step  approximating  to  that  to  which  it  led, — 
1  Page  353.  2  Page  27. 


156  Theory  of  Development. 

this  ascent  to  a  climax,  this  slowness  and  solemnity  in 
ushering  in  an  end, — the  whole  course  of  development,  in 
a  word,  in  the  Jewish  Dispensation,  so  far  from  affording 
a  parallel  for  the  same  in  the  Christian,  makes  us  expect 
the  very  contrary,  for  it  points  to  that  Eevelation  as  itself 
the  development  which  that  course  of  Judaism  had 
developed  into,  and  therefore  opposes  it,  instead  of 
paralleling  it  to  that  course,  on  the  development  point. 
We  do  not  argue  from  the  length  of  the  journey  the  length 
of  the  end  of  the  journey  ;  or  from  the  time  it  takes  learning 
the  time  it  must  take  knowing  ;  or  from  the  gradual  nature 
of  acquisition  the  gradual  nature  of  possession.  We  can¬ 
not  argue  from  the  development  of  the  seed  to  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  fruit ;  nor  from  the  growth  of  Judaism  to  the 
growth  of  Judaism’s  consummation — Christianity.  It  will 
he  said  that  a  Eevelation  may  be  the  development  of  an 
anterior  one,  and, may  yet  be  developed  itself  into  a 
further  and  larger  one,  but,  if  so,  it  is  not  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  that  anterior  revelation.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
Christian  Eevelation  is  only  as  a  whole,  and  including  all 
subsequent  growth,  the  development  of  the  Jewish;  but 
this  is  an  ambiguous  explanation  here.  The  question  is, 
Was  that  particular  revelation  which  immediately  suc¬ 
ceeded  to  Judaism  itself  the  development  of  Judaism,  or 
only  the  seed  of  a  prospective  grown  revelation  which 
was  to  be  ?  If  the  latter,  all  we  can  say  is,  that  it 
falsifies  the  whole  process  by  which  it  was  introduced. 
That  whole  course  of  preparation  in  which  Judaism 
consisted,  designed  and  adapted  as  it  professedly  was  for 
ushering  in  something  ultimate  and  perfect,  certainly  fell 
short  of  its  obvious  purpose,  and  balked  expectation,  if  it 
ushered  in  with  so  much  pomp  of  gradual  evolution,  not 
a  climax  and  end,  but  a  small  beginning,  a  seed  and 
element  of  a  future  grown  revelation.  The  same  kind  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


l57 


answer  may  be  given  to  another  argument  urged  in  behalf 
of  this  sort  of  development  in  Christianity,  the  argument, 
viz.,  that  the  Apostles  brought  out  the  truth  by  degrees 
in  their  preaching ;  for  this  kind  of  reserve  is,  of  its  own 
nature,  only  temporary,  and  has  reference  to  the  individual 
addressed  only,  and  not  to  the  condition  of  the  truth  itself, 
— the  very  fullest  and  most  perfect  knowledge  of  the  truth 
being  able  to  be  coincident  with  the  most  gradual  method 
of  communicating  it. 

Again,  there  is  a  general  argument  which  has  consider¬ 
able  weight  with  some  minds  in  favour  of  such  a  develop¬ 
ment  of  Christianity  as  we  are  speaking  of, — an  argument 
which  appeals  to  their  intellectual  prepossessions  and 
aspirations.  There  is  something  imposing  in  the  idea 
of  a  revelation  growing  and  enlarging ;  stationariness 
appears  to  them  like  stagnation ;  and  to  be  tied  to  an 
original  Bevelation  looks  like  adhering  to  “  beggarly 
elements.”  They  see  an  apparent  poverty  and  meagre- 
ness,  an  antiquarian  dryness  and  narrowness  in  the  latter 
view ;  that  of  growth  and  development  seems  a  larger 
one.  Largeness,  freedom,  and  depth  of  mind  seem  thus 
concerned  in  its  reception,  and  mental  qualities  are 
appealed  to  which  we  value  and  encourage  in  ourselves. 
We  like  the  sensation  of  growth  and  progress  in  our  own 
minds ;  we  sympathise  with  such  a  progress  in  the 
system  of  truth  to  which  we  belong ;  we  identify  our¬ 
selves  with  the  system,  and  like  progress  in  both  together. 
Of  this  feeling,  then,  there  is  a  right  side  and  a  wrong. 
The  love  of  progress,  considered  as  the  love  of  truth,  is 
right.  We  ought  to  be  glad  of  truth  growing,  provided  it 
does  grow ;  and  if  it  was  less  yesterday,  there  is  a  dis¬ 
interested  pleasure  and  triumph  in  its  being  more  to-day. 
But  there  is  another  feeling  which  mixes  very  subtly  with 
this  disinterested  triumph,  and  that  is  the  feeling  arising 


158 


Theory  of  Development. 


from  the  consideration  of  that  knowledge,  as  possessed  by 
ourselves,  in  favourable  contradistinction  to  others.  The 
tone  of  speakers  who  talk  of  the  “  march  of  mind,”  and 
the  discoveries  of  the  nineteenth  century,  for  example, 
has  obviously  a  considerable  mixture  of  the  flattery  of 
comparison  in  it.  An  age  likes  to  imagine  itself  on  some 
highest  ground  ;  sharpens  the  vertex  for  itself  to  stand  on, 
and  dwells  with  complacency  on  the  slowly  unfolding 
knowledge  of  its  predecessors.  This  is  applicable  to 
religion.  The  idea  of  a  fixed  settled  Bevelation,  simply 
continuing,  impressing  the  self-same  truth  from  century 
to  century  upon  the  human  heart,  and  only  guarding 
itself  from  time  to  time  against  misconstruction ;  applied 
to  a  thousand  different  cases,  and  meeting  a  thousand 
different  positions  as  ages  roll  on,  but  itself  standing 
still,  and  being  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  it  was 
eighteen  centuries  ago,  does  not  satisfy  the  feeling  we 
speak  of  so  well  as  the  idea  of  its  substantially  growing 
up  to  the  present  day.  And  under  this  feeling  the  prin¬ 
ciple  of  progress  may  proceed  to  claim  more  ground  than 
it  has  a  right  to,  may  begin  to  usurp,  and  make  out  a  case 
of  elementary  commencement,  in  order  that  it  may  enjoy 
the  sensation  of  subsequent  growth.  It  may  raise  pre¬ 
judices  to  the  disadvantage  of  earlier  times,  in  order  that 
it  may  gain  by  the  contrast ;  elevate  unnaturally  and  un¬ 
truly  present  thought  and  system ;  give  sensations  of 
largeness  and  height  at  the  expense  of  humility  ;  use  truth 
as  a  material  for  mental  exercise  and  prowess  ;  and  idolise 
movement  and  advance,  because  it  feels  itself  the  mover. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  mind  has  another  and  counter¬ 
acting  line  of  thought  to  this  ;  if  it  has  a  love  for  progress, 
it  can  also  see  through  progress ;  it  can  see  through  the 
accumulation  of  the  verbal  reflections  of  truth  into  the 
substance  which  they  reflect,  and  see  that  they  after  all  only 


Theory  of  Development. 


159 


reflect  it.  It  can  say  to  itself,  in  surveying  some  highly, 
— in  appearance, — developed  department  of  Christian 
doctrine,  Certainly  here  is  a  vast  machinery  of  language 
and  apparatus  of  divisions  and  defences  ;  here  is  much 
detail  of  thought  and  minuteness  of  evolution  :  I  see  that 
one  idea  has  a  quantity  of  questions  and  inferences  con¬ 
tained  in  it,  which  issue  out  of  it,  just  as  all  the  mathe¬ 
matical  aspects  of  a  triangle  issue  out  of  the  triangle ; 
nevertheless,  I  have  only  more  expressions  than  the 
early  Christian  had,  and  he  had  quite  as  full  and  rich  a 
substance,  because  the  self-same  one.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation,  for  example,  the  truth  that  God  was  man, 
and  man  God,  furnished  to  his  devout  imagination  all  that 
the  greatest  multiplication  of  mathematical  issues  from  it 
can  give  me.  He  had  all  those  issues  in  the  idea  before 
him.  He  did  not  consciously  apprehend  them  indeed ; 
and  no  more  do  Christians  now  apprehend  them.  If  an 
earlv  Christian  lived  before  the  times  of  scholastic  and 
controversial  divinity, — with  the  great  body,  not  of  ordinary 
only,  but  of  the  most  spiritual  and  deep  Christians  now, 
it  is  the  same  as  if  they  did.  Hay,  the  very  theologian 
whose  subtlety  elicited  them,  could  only,  by  a  painful 
effort  of  his  intellect,  momentarily  arrest  his  own  educ¬ 
tions  :  his  mind,  like  that  of  the  primitive  Christian, 
reposed  in  its  natural  devotional  state,  upon  the  one 
fundamental  idea.  His  meditation  carried  that  idea 
indeed  into  all  those  directions  where  meditation  could 
naturally  follow  it ;  could  dwell  on  all  the  graces  of  our 
Lord’s  human,  and  the  mystery  of  His  divine,  nature  ;  and 
so  could  the  meditation  of  the  early  Christian  too.  The 
same  deep,  rich,  mental  development  of  this  truth  was 
admissible  to  his  devotion,  which  was  to  the  schoolman’s. 
He  had  the  same  devotional  imagery,  because  he  had  the 
same  doctrinal  substance.  Mr.  Newman’s  argument  of 


i6o 


Theory  of  Development. 


development  indeed  gives  these  inferential  issues  a  sort  of 
separate  substantiality,  and  converts  them  into  actual 
growth  of  the  body  of  the  doctrine  :  “  the  treasure-house 
of  truth”  is  opening  to  the  Church’s  theological  search, 
and  she  is  beginning  to  enjoy,  in  these  issues,  the  real 
substance  of  the  doctrine,  of  which  she  has  hitherto  only 
had  the  element.  Her  “  unwearied  process  of  thought  ” 
has  at  last  brought  her  to  the  solid  reality  of  that  faith  of 
which  she  has  only  had  as  yet  the  foretaste.  But  another 
view  exhibits  them  as  only  the  manifold  reflections  and 
aspects  of  that  substance  which  existed  one  and  the  same 
all  along :  tells  us  that  the  devotional  thoughts  of  St. 
Ignatius  and  St.  Polycarp  dwelt  on  the  same  identical 
perfect  truth  of  an  Incarnate  God  on  which  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  or  St.  Bernard  dwelt;  presents  them  following 
the  mystery  into  all  that  region  of  awe  and  love  into 
which  it  leads  the  highest  Christian  of  to-day  ;  soaring  in 
contemplation  as  far  as  any  Christian  souls  did  after  them  ; 
and  enlightened  by  the  self-same  mentally  enlarging,  ex¬ 
panding,  enriching  dogma,  which  has  enlightened,  and 
will  enlighten,  all  saints,  past  and  present  and  to  come. 

Such  a  line  of  thought  as  this,  we  say,  will  not  com¬ 
pel  us  to  give  an  artificial  elevation  to  mere  additions  of 
definition,  to  convert  mere  shadows  of  language  into  actual 
new  knowledge,  and  so  attach  an  unreal  and  mechanical 
character  to  truth.  We  will  give  a  case  in  point.  In  the 
year  1215,  an  opinion  of  a  certain  Abbot  Joachim  on  the 
subject  of  the  unity  of  God  was  condemned  by  the  Council 
of  Lateran.  Joachim  maintained,  as  the  Council  tells  us, 
a  “  Unity  of  the  Divine  Nature  which  was  not  a  true 
and  proper  unity,  but  a  collective  and  metaphorical  one  : 
a  unity  in  the  sense  in  which  many  men  are  called  one 
people,  and  many  faithful  one  Church.”  Joachim  adduced 
the  texts — “  The  multitude  of  them  that  believed  were  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


161 


one  heart;”  “He  that  planteth  and  he  that  watereth  are 
one  and  others  of  the  same  kind  :  and-  especially  the 
text,  “  That  they  may  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one!’  He 
said  “  they,”  the  faithful,  are  not  one  thing  puna  res  quae 
communis  sit  omnibus'),  but  only  one  in  the  sense  of  being 
one  Church  and  one  kingdom ;  and  thence  argued  that 
the  Divine  Nature  was  not  one  thing  either,  but  only  one 
in  the  way  in  which  one  Christian  society  is  one.  Tor 
this  the  Council  condemned  him,  and  asserted  that  the 
Divine  Nature  was  one  thing — u  una  res."  Upon  this 
Mr.  Newman’s  comment  is,  that  the  numerical  unity  of 
the  Divine  Nature  had,  till  the  year  A.D.  1215,  only  existed 
as  “  an  impression  or  implicit  judgment  in  the  mind  of 
the  Church,”1  and  was  now  for  the  first  time  declared. 
Ideas,  he  says,  go  on  in  the  mind  of  an  individual  often 
in  a  vacant,  half-conscious  way  :  “  The  impression  made 
upon  the  mind  need  not  even  be  recognised  by  the  parties 
possessing  it.  .  .  .  Nothing  is  of  more  frequent  occurrence, 
whether  in  things  sensible  or  intellectual,  than  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  such  unperceived  impressions.  What  do  we  mean 
when  we  say  that  certain  persons  do  not  know  themselves, 
but  that  they  are  ruled  by  views  which  they  do  not  them¬ 
selves  recognise?”2  Such  an  “  unperceived  impression,” 
such  an  “unrecognised  view”  on  the  subject  of  the  unity 
of  God  does  he  consider  there  to  have  been  in  the  Church 
up  to  the  year  1215,  when,  for  the  first  time,  there  was 
a  direct  and  distinct  ecclesiastical  decision  upon  the 
numerical  unity  of  the  Divine  Nature.  Now,  we  ask, 
what  does  the  “  numerical  ”  unity  or  “  una  res,"  declared 
by  the  Lateran  Council,  mean  or  convey  to  us  more  than 
simple  unity,  as  the  Church  had  all  along  used  the  word  ? 
Here  is  a  certain  Abbot  Joachim  who  gives  a  plainly 
evasive  and  polytheistic  meaning  to  the  word  Unity,  and 

1  University  Sermons,  ed.  1872,  p.  323.  2  Ibid.  p.  321. 

L 


162 


Theory  of  Development. 


the  Council  asserts  that  it  has  not  that  polytheistic  mean¬ 
ing.  Any  other  Abbot  Joachim  who  chose  to  contradict 
the  plain  meaning  of  a  word,  might  explain  “  numerical” 
unity  exactly  in  the  same  way  in  which  his  predecessor 
explained  unity ;  nor  in  either  case,  the  two  being  con¬ 
demned,  is  anything  more  done  by  the  Church  than  simply 
repelling  an  absurd  meaning  from  the  word.  To  speak 
of  such  a  declaration  as  the  coming  to  light  of  an  “  implicit 
judgment  of  the  Church”  which  had  been  indeed  the 
“secret  life  of  millions  of  souls”1  hitherto,  hut  only  as 
secret  unconscious  truth, — to  speak  of  it  as  an  instance  of 
the  “  birth  of  an  idea,  the  development  in  explicit  form 
of  what  was  already  latent,”  the  realisation  by  the  Church 
of  “  an  unperceived  impression,”  “  an  unrecognised  view,” 
which  had  lain  hidden  in  her  from  the  first,  waiting  for 
this  moment  of  emission, — does  appear  to  us,  we  must  say, 
a  very  obvious  case  of  making  a  great  deal  out  of  nothing. 
The  truth  which  Abbot  Joachim  contradicted  was  not 
declared  for  the  first  time  at  the  Council  of  Lateran ;  it 
was  declared  long  enough  before  on  Mount  Sinai.  No 
orthodox  Jew  or  Christian  ever  dreamed  of  a  unity  of  God 
which  was  any  other  than  numerical  unity ;  and  the 
Lateran  condemnation  of  the  notion  that  the  Divine 
Nature  was  only  one  Divine  Nature  in  an  inclusive  sense, 
as  human  nature,  which  contains  all  the  individuals  in  it, 
is  one  human  nature,  was  a  simple  assertion  of  God's 
unity,  and  no  more.  What  we  mean  by  God  being  one, 
is  that  he  is  one  as  truly  as  one  thing  (res'),  one  man,  for 
example,  is  one.  “  LTna  res”  is  not  mentioned  indeed  in 
the  Nicene  Creed,  hut  has  any  Council  yet  defined  that 
God  is  good  ?  Yet  supposing  that  formally  declared, 
would  it  not  be,  or  would  it  he,  self-evidently  absurd  to 
say  that  an  implicit  unconscious  judgment  in  the  Church 
1  University  Sermons,  ed.  1872,  p.  323. 


Theory  of  Development.  163 

as  to  the  Divine  goodness,  now  became  explicit  and  posi¬ 
tive  knowledge  ? 1 

But  to  return  :  we  have  seen  the  kind  of  development 
which  Mr.  Newman  means,  and  of  which  he  maintains 
the  Nicene  Creed  to  be  an  instance,  viz.,  a  development 
of  positive  growth,  parallel  to  the  later  Boman  ones  of 
Purgatory,  the  Papal  Infallibility,  and  others. 

Now  a  development  of  this  kind  the  Nicene  Creed  was 
not.  The  Nicene  Creed  only  asserted  and  guarded  a 
doctrine  which  had  been  held  from  the  first,  viz.,  that  of 
Christ’s  true  and  proper  Divinity.  The  original  Christian 
Revelation  declared  that  Christ  was  God.  If  Christ  was 
God,  He  was  true  God  ;  He  had  true  and  proper  Godhead. 
The  Nicene  Creed  asserted  this  of  Him,  and  no  more ;  it 
expressed  this  truth,  and  no  more,  by  the  word  Homo- 
ousion.  The  word  Homoousion  declared  that  Christ  was 
very  God  with  God  the  Rather.  His  oneness  of  substance 
with  the  Rather  was  the  term  by  which  the  Nicene  Rathers 
declared  His  true  Godhead  with  the  Rather.  And  this 
true  Godhead  was  attributed  to  Christ  by  the  original 
Christian  Revelation,  which  declared  Him  to  be  God,  and 
commanded  Him  to  be  worshipped  as  God.  Should  it  be 
said  that  the  word  God  is  doubtful,  and  might  mean 
secondary  as  well  as  true  Godhead,  let  it  be  well  observed 
to  whom  the  Christian  Revelation  was  given.  The  Chris¬ 
tian  Revelation  was  not  engrafted  on  Paganism,  which 
had  not  the  belief,  but  on  Judaism  which  had  the  belief 
in  the  unity  of  the  Divine  nature.  “  Hear,  0  Israel,”  was 
the  Law’s  voice,  “  the  Lord  thy  God  is  one  Lord.”  The 
unity  of  God  was  the  great  dogma  of  the  Jewish  dispen¬ 
sation  ;  the  Jews  were  separated  from  the  rest  of  mankind, 
and  made  a  peculiar  people  in  order  to  preserve  that 
doctrine  amid  the  polytheism  of  the  whole  world  around 

1  Ibid. 


164 


Theory  of  Development. 


them,  and  be  a  standing  protest  against  it.  Christ,  there¬ 
fore,  being  revealed  as  God  to  the  Jews,  was  revealed  as 
the  one  God,  for  they  had  none  other  God  but  one.  Had 
the  Christian  Eevelation  been  made  to  Pagans  in  the  first 
instance,  and  the  Godhead  of  Christ  been  communicated 
to  people  whose  notions  of  Godhead  were  altogether  cor¬ 
rupted  and  polytheistic,  we  cannot  say  what  additional 
safeguards  would  have  been  necessary  in  order  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  revealed  true  Godhead  from  the  false  godheads 
of  numerous  other  divinities.  But  to  a  Jew  it  was  suffi¬ 
cient  to  say  that  Christ  wTas  God,  to  express  the  meaning 
that  he  was  true  God.  The  Eevelation  came  to  a  people 
whose  ideas  of  Godhead  had  been  purified  and  preserved 
in  strictness.  Their  education  under  the  Law  presented 
them  guarded  from  the  risk  of  misapprehending  Christ’s 
Divinity  when  it  should  be  revealed ;  and  the  faith  of  the 
old  dispensation  was  a  security  for  the  faith  of  the  new. 
We  can  hardly,  indeed,  understand  what  Mr.  Newman 
means  by  saying  that  there  was  little  importance  attached 
to  religious  opinion  under  the  old  dispensation.  He  says 
“  that  opinions  in  religion  are  not  matters  of  indifference, 
but  have  a  definite  bearing  on  the  position  of  their  holders 
in  the  Divine  Sight,  is  a  principle  which,  ...  I  suppose, 
had  hardly  any  exercise  under  the  Law ;  the  zeal  and 
obedience  of  the  ancient  people  being  employed  in  the 
maintenance  of  Divine  worship  and  the  overthrow  of 
idolatry,  not  in  the  assertion  of  opinion.”1  Surely  in 
overthrowing  idolatry,  in  maintaining  a  certain  worship, 
they  asserted  an  opinion,  and  a  belief,  and  that  a  strong  one. 
Nor  was  Jewish  thought  in  that  neutral  and  indistinct 
state  as  to  the  nature  of  God  which  would  fit  it  for  being: 
the  receptacle  of  an  indistinct  shadowy  doctrine  of  Christ’s 
Godhead.  The  Apostles  and  first  Christian  preachers  were 
1  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  339. 


Theory  of  Development.  165 

J ews  then,  and  came  to  the  new  truth  of  Christ’s  Godhead 
with  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  in  their  minds. 
And  Christianity  gave  its  own  strict  sense  to  the  word 
God  by  the  fact  of  its  speaking  to  minds  who  understood 
it  in  such  a  sense.  In  this  true  sense,  then,  the  Divinity 
of  Christ,  along  with  the  Divinity  of  God  the  Father,  and 
consistently  with  the  unity  of  the  Divine  Nature  (Chris¬ 
tianity  retaining  all  the  truth  of  Judaism  while  it  added 
to  it),  was  handed  down  to  the  succeeding  Church.  But 
in  course  of  time  a  heresy  arose,  denying  that  Christ  was 
God,  and  asserting  Him  to  be  a  creature.  The  Nicene 
Fathers  met  this  heresy  at  the  Council  of  Nice,  and  framed 
a  test  to  exclude  it.  That  test  was  the  “  Homoousion.” 
The  Arians  used  the  word  God  in  their  own  sense,  and 
therefore  the  word  God  did  not  exclude  in  their  case  the 
wrong  sense,  and  was  not  a  test.  But  the  “  Homoousion” 
was  a  test,  and  did  as  a  fact  answer  in  excluding  their 
sense,  and  therefore  the  orthodox  adopted  it.  And  the 
Nicene  Creed  was  an  explanation,  and  not  a  growth,  of 
the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity. 

Moreover,  this  ground  of  development  is  a  totally 
different  and  directly  opposite  ground  from  that  which  the 
Nicene  Fathers  themselves  professed  in  their  enunciation 
of  doctrine.  A  modern  theorist  may  plead  development 
for  them,  but  would  they  have  pleaded  it  for  themselves  ? 
Would  they  have  been  thankful  for  the  explanation,  or 
would  they  have  anathematised  uno  ore  the  broacher  of  it  ? 
A  person  must  know  very  little  of  ecclesiastical  history 
who  does  not  see  what  they  would  have  done.  Imagine 
any  one  of  that  age,  with  a  benevolent  wish  to  extricate 
the  Fathers  from  what  he  considered  a  difficulty,  inform¬ 
ing  them  that  they  were  developers,  and  that  their  ground 
was  perfectly  good  on  that  view.  It  appears  to  us  toler¬ 
ably  certain  that  if  such  a  person  had  maintained  his 


i66 


Theory  of  Development. 


theory  after  his  publication  of  it,  he  would  have  main¬ 
tained  it  outside  the  Church,  and  not  inside.  The  Fathers 
would  have  been  utterly  astonished  at  his  audacity ;  and 
they  would  have  told  him  to  communicate  his  assistance 
to  heretics,  for  that  they  wanted  none  of  it.  To  have 
called  them  developers  would  have  been  to  take  away,  in 
their  opinion,  the  very  ground  from  under  them,  and  to 
falsify  their  whole  position.  The  hypothesis  would  have 
come  into  direct  collision  with  the  special  declared  ground 
on  which  the  whole  of  their  doctrinal  teaching  went,  and 
would  have  just  interfered  with  the  very  essence  of  their 
argument.  Their  argument,  on  every  occasion  of  heresy 
arising,  was  one  and  the  same  thing,  viz.,  that  they  had 
received  a  certain  doctrine  from  the  first,  and  that  this 
heresy  was  contrary  to  it.  They  said,  This  is  the  old 
doctrine  that  we  have,  the  old  doctrine  which  the  Apostles 
delivered,  which  has  been  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  ever 
since,  which  we  received  from  our  predecessors  as  they 
received  it  from  theirs,  and  which  we  now  here  maintain 
as  we  received  it.  The  same,  the  very  same,  they  re¬ 
peated  ;  they  professed  to  hold  it  because  it  was  the  same, 
and  for  that  reason  only.  They  would  not  receive  or 
listen  to  any  other,  for  the  simple  reason  that  that  other 
was  not  the  same.  They  shut  their  ears  in  horror,  the 
very  sound  of  novelty  shocked  them,  and  they  seemed 
polluted  by  the  mere  contact  of  their  ears  with  it.  “  Who 
ever  heard  of  such  things  ?”  was  the  universal  cry  of  the 
orthodox  onArianism  appearing;  “Who  is  not  astounded 
at  them  ?  ”  The  Arians  positively  ridiculed  the  extreme 
and  obstinate  simplicity  of  their  arguments  ;  they  taunted 
the  Nicene  Fathers  with  being  dcpeXels  /cal  ISLGoras,  poor 
unintellectual  men,  who  neither  had  nor  put  forward  any 
reasoning  whatever  as  the  basis  of  their  doctrine,  but  kept 
on  one  unceasing,  unvarying,  untiring  appeal  to  simple 


Theory  of  Development. 


167 


fact.  They  would  have  drawn  them  by  taunts  from  this 
ground,  but  the  Mcene  Fathers  were  not  to  be  taunted 
off  a  ground  of  which  they  were  sure.  And  they  went 
on,  and  the  whole  Church  with  them,  appealing  uno  ore 
to  a  simple  fact ;  asserting  uno  ore  that  the  doctrine  they 
had, and  which  they  now  at  the  Mcene  Council  enunciated, 
was  the  same,  very  same,  self-same,  original  doctrine  which 
the  Apostles  had  delivered  and  handed  down.  Compare, 
e.g.,  the  whole  mode  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the  “Homo- 
ousion”  was  maintained  against  Aldus,  and  the  mode  in 
which  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  was  maintained 
against  Berengarius ;  there  is  just  the  difference  which 
the  fact  of  the  one  being  an  old  fundamental  received 
truth,  and  the  other  being  a  view  of  gradual,  later  growth 
in  the  Church,  would  naturally  make. 

Here,  however,  Mr.  Newman  introduces  a  counter 
argument,  and,  to  the  actual  inference  which  would  be 
drawn  from  this  universal  testimony,  opposes  certain 
asserted  deficiencies  and  ambiguities,  in  the  expression  of 
the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  proper  divinity  in  the. documents 
of  the  ante-Mcene  age,  now  extant.  He  asserts  that  the 
ante-Mcene  documents  do  not  of  themselves  prove  the 
reception  of  this  doctrine  in  those  times,  and  takes  us  upon 
the  ground  which  Bishop  Bull  went  over  with  Petavius. 
On  this  point  we  have  a  word  to  say  to  begin  with. 

It  does  not,  we  conceive,  devolve  upon  us  then,  in  this 
state  of  the  case,  to  refute  a  doubt  which  is  a  contradic¬ 
tion  to  the  plain  traditional  testimony  of  the  Church 
Universal.  The  Church  Universal  has  had  those  docu¬ 
ments  before  them  since  the  time  they  were  written,  and 
it  has,  from  the  time  they  were  written  down  to  the 
present  day,  asserted  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  of  our 
Lord’s  true  and  proper  divinity  was  the  received  doctrine 
of  the  Primitive  Church,  and  communicated  to  it  straight 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 68 


by  the  Apostles.  As  far  as  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
age  after  age  from  the  first,  receiving  and  handing  down 
in  turn  the  report  of  a  fact,  can  settle  the  truth  of  that 
fact,  the  truth  of  this  fact  is  settled.  The  Church  Catho¬ 
lic  now  at  this  moment  in  all  her  branches,  Eastern  and 
Western,  from  every  authorised  book  of  instruction, 
declares  this  fact.  It  does  not  devolve  upon  us  to  argue 
for  the  truth  of  a  fact  under  such  circumstances  against 
an  all  but  unsupported  contradiction  to  it.  Still  less, 
when  a  view  approximating  to  Mr.  Newman’s  on  this 
subject  was  put  forward  about  a  century  and  a  half  ago  in 
the  Church  bv  a  particular  writer,  and  was  formally,  and 
with  great  weight  of  solid  intellect  and  learning,  answered 
by  another, — of  which  answer  no  notice  worth  the  name 
has  been  taken  by  Mr.  Newman, — does  it  devolve  upon 
us  to  repeat  that  defence  of  early  belief  which  the  latter 
writer  made.  When  Mr.  Newman  puts  forward  an  answer 
to  Bishop  Bull’s  arguments  on  this  subject,  it  will  then  be 
proper  time  for  somebody  to  reconsider  Bishop  Bull’s 
arguments  in  connection  with  Mr.  Newman’s  reply.  But 
as  yet  Bishop  Bull  has  received  no  reply,  and  therefore  as 
yet  his  arguments  stand  good.  A  note  on  the  irpiv  ryevvi 7- 
6fjvcu,  showing  that  Bull  has  made  a  mistake  (as  what 
theologian,  however  accurate  and  solid,  has  net  in  some 
matter  of  detail?)  in  his  interpretation  of  that  clause; 
and  a  hint  thrown  here  and  there,  intended  to  create  a 
disparaging  impression  of  Bull’s  argument,  but  hardly 
tangible  enough,  or  indeed  sufficiently  declaratory  even  of 
the  objector’s  own  meaning  or  purpose,  to  be  able  to  be 
replied  to,  are  not  an  answer  to  Bishop  Bull.  An  objec¬ 
tion  must  be  made  in  a  certain  way  to  be  properly  fit  for 
argumentative  notice  at  all ;  and  if  indefiniteness  makes 
it  unanswerable,  it  makes  it  also  nothing  to  be  answered. 
When  Petavius  threw  doubts  upon  the  orthodoxy  of  the 


Theory  of  Development. 


169 


ante-Nicene  period,  Bull  met  him  with  a  regular  answer, 
in  which  he  went  in  detail  through  the  whole  extant  body 
of  theology  of  that  period,  and  first  brought  forward 
copious  positive  evidence  from  that  theology  of  those 
writers  having  held  the  Nicene  doctrine;  and  then,  as 
another  part  of  his  treatise,  brought  forward  arguments 
explanatory  of  certain  passages  in  it,  which  appeared  out 
of  harmony  with  that  doctrine.  Now  such  a  work  cannot 
be  thrown  aside  with  such  a  notice  as  the  following : — 

“  In  the  question  raised  by  various  learned  men  in  the 
seventeenth  and  following  century,  concerning  the  views  of 
the  early  Fathers  on  the  subject  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity,  the 
one  party  estimate  their  theology  by  the  literal  force  of  their 
separate  expressions  or  phrases,  or  by  the  philosophical 
opinions  of  the  day;  the  other,  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  afterwards  authoritatively  declared.  The  one 
party  argues  that  those  Fathers  need  not  have  meant  more 
than  what  was  afterwards  considered  heresy;  the  other 
answers  that  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  their  meaning  more. 
Thus  the  position  which  Bull  maintains  seems  to  be  nothing 
beyond  this,  that  the  Nicene  Creed  is  a  natural  key  for  inter¬ 
preting  the  body  of  ante-Nicene  theology.  His  very  aim  is 
to  explain  difficulties;  now  the  notion  of  difficulties  and  their 
explanation  implies  a  rule  to  which  they  are  apparent  ex¬ 
ceptions,  and  in  accordance  with  which  they  are  to  be  ex¬ 
plained.  Nay,  the  title  of  his  work,  which  is  a  “Defence  of 
the  Creed  of  Nicaea,”  shows  that  he  is  not  seeking  a  conclu¬ 
sion,  but  imposing  a  view.  And  he  proceeds  both  to  defend 
the  Creed  by  means  of  the  Fathers  against  Sandius,  and  to 
defend  the  Fathers  by  means  of  the  Creed  against  Petavius. 
He  defends  Creed  and  Fathers  by  reconciling  one  with  the 
other.  He  allows  that  their  language  is  not  such  as  they 
would  have  used,  after  the  Creed  had  been  imposed ;  but  he 
says  in  effect  that,  if  we  will  but  take  it  in  our  hands  and 
apply  it  to  their  writings,  we  shall  bring  out  and  harmonise 
their  teaching,  clear  their  ambiguities,  and  discover  their 
anomalous  statements  to  be  few  and  insignificant.  In  other 


170  T heory  of  Develop  men  t. 

words,  lie  begins  with  a  presumption,  and  shows  how  natur¬ 
ally  facts  close  round  it  and  fall  in  with  it,  if  we  will  but  let 
them.  He  does  this  triumphantly.'’ — Page  158. 

That  is  to  say,  Mr.  Newman  puts  aside  the  whole 
work  of  Bull’s  ab  initio;  and  in  order  to  justify  that 
attitude  to  it,  fixes  a  particular  aspect  upon  the  work. 
The  writer  of  it,  he  says,  “  imposes  a  view,”  and  shows 
“  how  facts  fall  in  with  a  presumption,  if  we  will  but  let 
them  f  in  other  words,  colours  facts  according  to  an 
hypothesis  ;  assumes  without  evidence  a  Nicene  belief  in 
these  writers  in  the  first  instance,  and  then  interprets 
their  language  to  signify  this  belief.  This  view  of  Bull’s 
work  relieves  an  opponent  of  all  necessity  of  going  into 
the  contents  of  it,  and  meeting  his  facts ;  he  has  only  to 
deny  Bull’s  hypothesis,  and  the  erection  upon  it  falls  to 
the  ground  at  once.  ITe  can  even  afford  to  allow  that 
Bull  proves  what  he  wants  upon  his  hypothesis  trium¬ 
phantly  :  a  thing,  by  the  way,  impossible  for  him  in  the 
nature  of  things  to  avoid  doing  on  this  view,  seeing  Bull’s 
hypothesis,  as  thus  made  for  him,  is  itself  the  exact  thing 
which  Bull  wants  to  prove.  But  surely  to  answer  Bull’s 
work  thus  is  simply  to  avoid  it.  It  is  to  answer  an  op¬ 
ponent’s  evidence  by  not  hearing  what  he  has  to  say ;  by 
assuming  at  starting  that  his  evidence  is  valueless,  and 
that  he  gets  his  conclusion  out  of  his  own  head.  Instead 
of  meeting  what  a  writer’s  argument  brings  forward,  his 
argument  itself  is  assumed  to  be  a  totally  different  one  from 
what  he  declares  it  to  be,  and  metamorphosed  into  one 
which  an  opponent  can  afford  to  call  “  triumphant,”  be¬ 
cause  he  has  made  it  nugatory.  The  whole  aspect  here 
fixed  on  Bull’s  work  requires  wrong  statements  to  support 
it, — statements  which  are  made  here  :  “  The  one  party 
argues  that  these  fathers  need  not  have  meant  more  than 
what  was  afterwards  considered  heresy  :  the  other  (Bull) 


'Theory  of  Development.  1 7 1 

answers  that  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  their  meaning 
more.”  This  is  not  Bull’s  answer.  Bull’s  answer  is  that 
they  must  mean  more, — that  there  is  satisfactory  positive 
evidence  from  their  own  statements  that  they  did  mean 
more.  Again,  “The  position  which  Bull  maintains  seems 
to  be  nothing  beyond  this,  that  the  Mcene  Creed  is  a 
natural  hey  for  interpreting  the  body  of  ante-dSTicene 
theology.”  The  position  which  Bull  maintains  is  a  great 
deal  beyond  this.  He  expressly  tells  us  what  it  is  in  his 
preface  to  his  work. — “  Duriora  veterum  dicta  catholicum 
sensum  non  modo  admittere  sed  ct  postulare,  observato  cujus- 
que  auctoris  scopo  et  pro posito,  adductisque  etiam  ex  singulis 
sententiis  aliis,  luculentioribus ,  solide  probare  conatus  sum.” 
And  if  it  be  objected  that  a  writer  gives  a  partial  view  of 
the  nature  of  his  own  argument,  it  is  sufficient  in  answer 
to  refer  to  the  work  itself,  which  unquestionably  does 
what  the  writer  says  it  does.  Bull,  that  is  to  say,  does 
not  explain  the  duriora  dicta  of  these  writers  by  an  appeal 
to  subsequent  doctrine,  but  by  an  appeal  to  much  fuller 
and  clearer  statements  from,  and  to  the  whole  pervading 
fundamental  teaching  of,  those  very  writers  themselves. 
The  plain  state  of  the  case  is,  that  Bull  asserts  a  fact  and 
brings  forward  evidence  for  it.  If  books  teach  something, 
it  is  surely  possible  for  them  to  show  from  their  own 
language  what  they  do  teach  :  he  asserts  that  the  language 
of  the  books  in  question  shows  that  they  teach  the  Nicene 
truth  of  our  Lord’s  absolute  Divinity.  It  is  open  to  any 
one  to  call  proving  a  fact  “  imposing  a  view,”  and  a  person 
who  brings  forward  evidence  for  a  particular  fact  in  a 
court  of  justice,  may  be  looked  on  as  “imposing  a  view” 
upon  the  evidential  matter  which  he  brings  forward  ;  but 
a  judge  wrould  hardly  interfere  with  an  arguer  on  such  a 
ground,  and  stop  him  in  limine  with  the  distinction  that 
he  must  not  “  impose  a  view,  but  seek  a  conclusion.” 


1 72 


Theory  of  Development. 


There  is  no  call  then  upon  us,  we  repeat,  to  reply  to  an 
argument  to  which  a  reply  has  been  already  given  and 
not  answered.  But  as  our  readers  may  require  some 
specimens  of  Mr.  Newman  s  mode  of  arguing,  we  will 
subjoin  one  or  two. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  he  maintains  that  there  is  not 
evidence  enough  in  quantity,  in  these  extant  ante-Nicene 
documents,  to  show  that  certain,  now  considered,  funda¬ 
mental  truths  were  held  by  the  early  Church.  “  One 
divine  is  not  equal  to  a  Catena.  We  must  have  a  whole 
doctrine  stated  by  a  whole  Church.  The  Catholic  truth 
in  question  is  made  up  of  a  number  of  separate  proposi¬ 
tions,  each  of  which,  if  maintained  without  the  rest,  is  a 
heresy.  In  order  then  to  prove  that  all  the  ante-Nicene 
writers  taught  it,  it  is  not  enough  to  prove  that  each  has 
gone  far  enough  to  be  a  heretic, — not  enough  to  prove  that 
one  has  held  that  the  Son  is  God  (for  so  did  the  Sabellian, 
so  did  the  Macedonian),  and  another  that  the  Bather  is 
not  the  Son  (for  so  did  the  Arian),  and  another  that  the 
Son  is  equal  to  the  Father  (for  so  did  the  Tritlieist),  and 
another  that  there  is  but  one  God  (for  so  did  the  Uni¬ 
tarian), — not  enough  that  many  attached  in  some  sense  a 
threefold  power  to  the  idea  of  the  Almighty  (for  so  did 
almost  all  the  heresies  that  ever  existed,  and  could  not 
but  do  so,  if  they  accepted  the  New  Testament  at  all) ;  but 
we  must  show  that  all  these  statements  at  once,  and 
others  too,  are  laid  down  by  as  many  separate  testimonies 
as  may  fairly  be  taken  to  constitute  a  ‘  Consensus  of 
doctors.’”1  Again,  “The  creeds  of  that  early  day  make 
no  mention  in  their  letter  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  at  all. 
They  make  mention  indeed  of  a  Three ;  but  that  there  is 
any  mystery  in  the  doctrine  that  the  Three  are  One,  that 
They  are  co-equal,  co- eternal,  all  increate,  all  incompre- 

1  Page  11. 


Theory  of  Development.  173 

hensible,  is  not  stated,  and  never  could  be  gathered  from 
them.”1  Again,  “  If  we  limit  our  views  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Fathers  by  what  they  expressly  state,  St.  Ignatius 
may  be  considered  a  Patripassian,  St.  Justin  arianises, 
and  St.  Hippolytus  is  a  Photinian.”2  Again,  “  It  may  be 
questioned  whether  any  ante-Mcene  Father  distinctly 
affirms  either  the  numerical  unity,  or  the  co- equality  of 
the  three  persons.”3  One  large  class  of  statements,  he 
decides,  in  early  writings,  is  thus  not  sufficiently  clear  and 
explanatory.  He  adds  that  that  class  of  statements  which 
is  sufficiently  clear  and  explanatory,  is  not  sufficiently 
large.  “  We  find  the  word  Trinity  used  by  St.  Theophilus, 
St.  Clement,  St.  Hippolytus,  Tertullian,  St.  Cyprian, 
Origen,  St.  Methodius ;  and  the  Divine  Circumincessio,  the 
most  distinctive  portion  of  the  Catholic  doctrine,  and  the 
unity  of  power,  or  again  of  substance,  are  declared,  with 
more  or  less  distinctness  by  Athenagoras,  St.  Irenseus,  St. 
Clement,  Tertullian,  St.  Hippolytus,  Origen,  and  the  two 
SS.  Dionysii.”  “This,”  he  concludes  with  saying,  “is  pretty 
much  the  whole  of  the  evidence,”4  and  this  is  not  enough. 

We  will  forestall  our  answer  here,  so  far  as  to  say  that 
unless  the  want  of  evidence  from  other  quarters  as  well  is 
shown,  the  mere  insufficiency  of  evidence  in  ante-Nicene 
documents,  were  it  even  conceded,  has  nothing  decisive  in 
it ; — especially  such  a  kind  of  insufficiency  as  is  instanced 
here,  which  simply  proceeds  from  the  inability  of  writers 
to  express  all  the  aspects  of  the  truth  they  are  speaking 
of  at  once ;  and  that  perhaps  when  they  are  purposely 
giving  prominence  to  some  one  or  other  aspect.  To  say 
that  no  one  of  the  statements  in  these  writers,  taken  singly, 
would  logically  contain  the  whole,  i.e.  all  aspects  of  the 
doctrine  in  question ;  that  a  Sabellian  interpretation  may 
be  put  upon  one,  a  Macedonian  upon  another,  an  Arian 

1  Page  12.  2  Page  14.  3  Ibid.  4  Page  115. 


i?4 


Theory  of  Development. 


upon  another,  a  Tritheist  upon  another,  an  Unitarian 
upon  another,  according  as  each  statement  in  succes¬ 
sion  does  not  of  itself  supply  all  the  enunciations  of 
truth  which  would  he  the  contradictions  to  those  errors, 
is  not  saying  much.  Who  could  possibly  expect  such 
completeness  of  them  ?  Is  it  to  be  found  in  writers 
of  the  latest  age  even  ?  Take  up  the  last  volume  of 
sermons  of  ever  so  orthodox  a  divine,  and  could  not  just 
the  same  remark  be  made,  that  different  statements  in  it 
were  in  themselves  incomplete,  and  that  the  void  might 
be  filled  up  with  Sabellian,  Macedonian,  Arian  comple¬ 
ments,  as  might  be?  What  human  being  ever  could 
possibly  write  a  single  page,  on  the  condition  that  he  was 
to  express  the  whole  of  the  truth  which  he  believed  in 
each  sentence  ?  To  make  such  a  demand  as  this  of  the 
ante-Nicene  Fathers,  would  be  as  much  as  to  say,  do  what 
you  cannot  do,  accomplish  some  feat  of  language  which 
the  constitution  of  human  thought  makes  impossible,  and 
then  you  may  command  my  attention. 

But  besides  this  negative  ground  of  insufficiency,  Mr. 
Newman  has  a  positive  one  in  the  actual  discrepancies 
of  language  in  ante-Nicene  and  post-Nicene  writers, 
which  appear  so  great  to  him,  that  he  infers  an  actual 
difference  in  their  respective  doctrines  themselves  on  the 
fundamental  points  in  question, — such  a  difference  as  is 
parallel  to  the  primitive  and  later  state  of  the  doctrine  of 
Purgatory,  the  Papal  Infallibility,  and  the  like.  Early 
Fathers  reject  expressions  which  later  ones  use,  and  use 
expressions  which  later  ones  reject,  on  the  subject  of  our 
Lord’s  nature. 

Now  the  question  of  certain  discrepancies  of  language, 
and  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  them,  is  evidently  one 
that  comes  under  the  general  head  and  department  of 
language ;  and  is  to  be  settled  in  accordance  with  the  rules 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 75 


and  principles  by  which  we  decide  on  questions  of  lan¬ 
guage  in  general.  And,  speaking  generally,  it  is  not,  we 
hope,  explaining  away  language,  but  simply  and  literally 
explaining  it,  to  say  that  language,  in  the  case  of  the 
persons  using  it,  only  means  what  they  mean  by  it. 
Language,  as  language  only,  has  no  meaning  whatever. 
A  certain  collection  of  sounds  or  marks,  as  such,  no  more 
means  one  thing  than  another.  The  question  is,  what 
people  using  them  understand  by  such  sounds  and  marks  ? 
We  are  speaking  here  of  the  matter  practically,  the  only 
wray  in  wThich  we  are  here  concerned  with  it,  and  do  not 
enter  at  all  into  the  great  and  important  metaphysical 
controversies  on  the  subject  of  language.  Mr.  Newman 
himself  says,  “  Ideas  may  remain  (remain  the  same  ideas 
we  presume  he  means,  not  different  ones)  when  the 
expression  of  them  is  infinitely  varied.”1  This  common 
sense  truth  about  language  leads  necessarily  to  a  certain 
line  of  judging  with  respect  to  discrepancies  of  language. 
It  is  evident  that  it  is  not  enough  in  such  cases,  for  prov¬ 
ing  the  discrepancy  of  the  ideas,  to  point  to  the  discrepancy 
of  the  language.  In  ordinary  literature  words  alter  their 
meaning  often  in  the  course  of  ages ;  and  wTe  do  not  infer, 
because  one  word  is  used  in  one  age,  and  another  in 
another,  that  therefore  the  ages  had  different  ideas ;  but 
only  that  the  words  themselves  have  different  senses. 
And  this  rule  applies  to  the  department  of  theological 
language  as  well  as  that  of  others.  It  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  the  early  Fathers,  in  particular  instances,  used 
language  which  later  ones  avoided,  to  prove  a  difference 
of  doctrine  in  the  two ;  it  must  appear  that  they  used  it 
in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  others  avoided  it.  It  may 
turn  out,  on  a  reference  to  history,  as  the  plainest  matter 
of  fact  in  the  world,  that  they  did  not.  A  great  deal  may 

1  Page  60. 


1 76 


Theory  of  Development. 


actually  appear  in  history  with  respect  to  this  matter,  of 
the  meaning  in  which  words  were  regarded,  whether  to  use 
or  not  use  them.  Writers  may  tell  us  totidem  verbis  in 
some  cases,  in  others  by  the  context  and  whole  drift  of 
their  writing,  that  they  do  not  use  or  reject  such  a  word 
or  phrase  in  the  obnoxious  meaning  in  which  it  was 
regarded  afterwards.  Indeed,  such  language  in  them  may 
often  not  only  show  no  incorrectness  of  idea,  but  in  the 
writers  no  incorrectness  to  the  very  smallest  extent  even 
of  language.  For  the  bad  meaning  we  see  constantly  in 
the  history  of  theological  language  arose  after  the  use  of 
the  phrase.  The  early  Fathers  expressed  themselves  in 
language  such  as  suggested  itself  in  the  act  of  writ¬ 
ing  on  certain  sacred  subjects  :  heretics  afterward  used 
this  language  in  an  obnoxious  sense,  and  so  the  language 
itself  became  obnoxious  ;  but  the  heretics  and  not  the 
early  Fathers  made  it  so.  Language  is  able  to  bear 
different  senses ;  and  you  cannot,  by  using  it  in  one  sense, 
prevent  others  after  you  from  using  it  in  another.  From 
such  a  law,  as  from  a  mathematical  principle,  proceeded 
inevitably  some  changes  in  theological  language  in  the 
early  Church ;  such  changes  proving  simply,  not  that  bad 
language  was  used,  but  that  language  was.  Language 
was  used ;  and  having  been  used,  was  perverted.  What 
was  to  prevent  this  course  of  things  ?  Nothing,  except 
that  no  language  should  have  been  used  to  begin  with  at 
all.  Some  persons  must  live  before  others  ;  write  before 
others  :  in  language  antecedency  is  enough  to  create  per¬ 
version.  Had  the  early  Fathers  never  spoken,  their 
words  would  never  have  been  used  in  an  unfavourable 
sense ;  if  they  afterwards  were,  it  only  proves  that  they 
spoke.  Some  limitation,  in  particular  instances,  theo¬ 
logical  language  thus  underwent  as  the  necessary  condi¬ 
tion  of  its  existence.  It  was  more  free  at  first,  because 


Theory  of  Development. 


1 77 


it  was  then  anterior  to  its  misuse ;  and  the  early  Fathers 
wrote  more  naturally  and  pliably,  and  were  less  afraid  of 
venturing  on  some  of  the  tender  parts  of  doctrine ;  and 
shrunk  less  from  some  mysteries  which  later  theology, 
though  holding  their  truth,  avoids ;  were  less  stiff,  and 
trusted  themselves  nearer  the  verge.  And  who  can  say 
that  diminution  of  that  freedom  of  language  is  in  itself 
a  privilege ;  or,  while  he  respects  the  orthodoxy  which 
subsequently  avoided  what  was  misinterpreted,  elevate 
avoidance  so  caused,  from  a  remedy  for  an  evil,  into  an 
advantage  in  itself  ?  Such  facts  are  interesting  ones  in  the 
history  of  theological  language ;  but  the  history  of  lan¬ 
guage  is  one  thing,  and  the  history  of  doctrine  is  another. 
And  to  go  up  straight  from  modern  language  to  ancient, 
and  accuse  the  ancient  of  unsoundness  because  we  our¬ 
selves  bring  with  us  associations  of  unsoundness  to  it,  is 
not  philosophical  or  just. 

We  have  said  thus  much  on  the  point  of  language,  to 
show  that  words  may  be  rejected  at  an  earlier  time  and 
used  at  a  later,  or  used  at  an  earlier  time  and  rejected  at 
a  later,  without  any  difference  of  idea  and  doctrine  being 
proved. 

An  instance  of  the  former  we  have  in  the  history  of 
the  word  “  Homoousion.”  Mr.  Newman  makes  a  point 
of  the  word  “  Homoousion  ”  having  been  rejected  at  the 
Council  of  Antioch  sixty  years  before  it  was  received  at 
the  Ecumenical  Council  of  Nice.  “There  is  one  and 
only  one  great  doctrinal  council  in  ante-Nicene  times. 
It  was  held  at  Antioch,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century, 
on  occasion  of  the  incipient  innovations  of  the  Syrian 
heretical  school.  Now  the  Fathers  then  assembled,  for 
whatever  reason,  condemned,  or  at  least  withdrew,  when  it 
came  into  the  dispute,  the  word  “  Homoousion,”  which  was 
received  at  Nicsea  as  the  special  symbol  of  Catholicism 


1 78 


Theory  of  Development. 


against  Arius.”1  Now  we  have  already,  in  what  we  have 
said,  answered  this  statement ;  for  Mr.  Newman  says,  “  for 
whatever  reason/’  as  if  it  made  no  matter,  so  long  as  the 
word  was  rejected,  what  reason  it  was  rejected  for ;  whereas 
we  have  maintained  that  that  makes  all  the  difference. 

It  so  happens,  however,  that  we  have  an  explanation  of 
this  fact  from  St.  Athanasius  himself,  who  expressly 
vindicates  the  Antiochene  Fathers  from  having  meant,  in 
rejecting  the  word,  any  other  than  the  same  precise 
doctrine  which  the  Nicene  Fathers  meant  in  adopting  it ; 
and  attributes  the  difference  of  their  respective  lines  about 
it  entirely  to  an  accidental  difference  of  view  about  the 
word  itself.  He  says,  “  If  we  examine  their  real  meaning, 
we  shall  find  that  both  Councils  agree.  The  former  was 
condemning  the  heresy  of  Samosata,  the  latter  the  Arian 
heresy.  They  who  condemned  the  Samosatene  heresy 
took  the  word  ‘Homoousion’  in  a  corporeal  sense.  For 
Paul  sophisticated,  and  said,  if  Christ  was  consubstantial 
with  the  Father,  it  necessarily  followed  that  there  must 
be  three  different  substances,  one  which  is  prior,  and  two 
other  sprung  from  that.  To  avoid  that  sophism  of  Paul, 
the  Fathers  said  that  Christ  was  not  consubstantial,  i.e. 
that  He  was  not  in  that  relation  to  the  Father  which 
Paul  said  the  word  meant.  On  the  other  hand,  those 
who  condemned  the  Arian  heresy  saw  through  the  cun¬ 
ning  of  Paul,  and  considered  that  in  things  incorporeal, 
especially  in  Gfod,  consubstantial  did  not  mean  this,  and 
asserted  the  Son  to  be  begotten  of  the  substance  of  the 
Father,  and  yet  not  to  be  separate  from  the  Father.  .  .  . 
The  more  simple  Antiochene  bishops  did  not  apply  that 
nicety  and  discrimination  in  their  treatment  of  the  word 
consubstantial,  but  gave  it  the  meaning  which  they  were 
told  it  had.  They  wished  to  condemn  Paul,  and  they 


Theory  of  Development. 


179 


were  wholly  intent  on  that.”  1  Here  is  an  explanation  of 
the  fact,  then,  from  an  authority  which  nobody  can  dispute. 
It  appears  that  there  was  a  heretic,  Paul  of  Samosata,  at 
that  time,  who  held  the  modern  Socinian  view,  or  some¬ 
thing  near  it,  that  Christ  was  only  a  man  naturally,  and 
was  made  God  from  being  a  man.  They  wished  to  test 
Paul  by  the  word  “  consubstantial,”  and  make  him  say  or 
deny  that  Christ  was  of  one  substance  with  the  Pather. 
He  had  a  subtler  head  than  his  judges,  and  perplexed 
them  with  an  inference  which  he  drew  from  the  word, 
that  if  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost  were  of  the  same 
substance  with  the  Pather,  the  original  substance  of  the 
Father  was  divided  into  three  substances.  The  Fathers 
not  seeing  their  way  at  the  time  as  to  whether  the  word 
implied  this  or  not,  simply  withdrew  the  word,  and  con¬ 
demned  Paul  without  it.  Here,  then,  is  no  difference 
whatever  from  strict  Nicene  doctrine,  though  an  abstinence 
from  a  Nicene  word ;  and  so  far  from  abstaining  from  the 
word,  because  it  went  too  far  for  them,  the  Antiochene 
Fathers  actually  wish  to  use  the  word  for  the  very  purpose 
for  which  it  was  used  at  Nice,  viz.,  for  expressing  the 
proper  divinity  of  the  Son ;  and  are  only  turned  from 
doing  so  by  the  sudden  suggestion  of  an  unfavourable 
meaning  which  the  word  might  bear  in  another  direction 
from  that  in  which  they  were  then  specially  employing  it. 

We  will  add  that,  in  other  ways  besides  the  one  just 
exemplified,  the  word  “  Homoousion  ”  has  a  history  of  its 
own,  as  many  words  have;  and  that,  when  it  is  objected 
that  it  was  sometimes  bestowed  in  early  times  where  it 
was  afterwards  withheld,  just  as  we  have  seen  it  withheld 
where  it  was  afterwards  bestowed,  it  is  saying  no  more 
than  that  the  word  “  Homoousion  ”  is,  as  a  word,  recipient 
of  different  meanings,  which  it  undoubtedly  is.  As  far 
1  S.  Athanas.  de  conciliis  Arimin.  et  Seleuc.,  ch.  iii.,  §  45. 


i8o 


Theory  of  Development. 


as  the  word  itself  is  concerned,  it  does  not  tell  us  whether 
it  means  that  oneness  of  substance  with  God  which  the 
Deus  ex  Deo  has,  or  such  oneness  of  substance  with  Him 
as  might  mean  simply  coming  from  Him,  and  which 
creatures  might  have  ;  for  we  express  creation  sometimes 
as  a  kind  of  derivation,  meaning  nothing  in  so  calling  it 
more  than  creation.  If  instances  then  can  be  found  in 
which,  as  says  a  modern  reviewer  of  the  Petavian  school, 
angels  and  souls  were  called  by  early  writers  “  Homoou- 
sioi  ”  with  God,  what  does  the  fact  prove  ?  Simply  that 
the  word  was  sometimes  used  then  in  a  vaguer  mean¬ 
ing  than  that  to  which  it  was  afterwards  confined.  To 
argue  from  such  a  fact,  that  a  certain  doctrine,  afterwards 
tested  by  that  word,  was  then  only  partially  held,  would 
be  to  imply  that  the  word  itself  made  the  doctrine  which 
it  tested.  The  Church  had  a  doctrine  which  she  wanted 
to  preserve  and  guard :  she  had  to  choose  from  the  words 
which  language  gave  her  for  this  purpose,  and  she  took 
the  word  “  Homoousion.”  It  did  not  in  itself  necessarily 
convey  that  one  exclusive  meaning  which  she  wanted  it 
to  convey,  but  her  own  use  of  the  word  in  that  exclusive 
meaning,  in  time  gave  it  that  exclusive  meaning.  But  for 
this  imposition  of  a  meaning  on  the  word  “  Homoousion,” 
a  modern  Socinian  might  use  it ;  there  is  nothing  in  the 
word  itself  to  prevent  him  from  putting  his  own  sense 
upon  it,  and  in  that  sense  acknowledging  our  Lord  to  be 
“  Homoousion”  with  the  Father.  It  is  a  great,  providential 
mercy,  indeed,  that  the  Church  is  thus  enabled  to  conquer 
the  essential  uncertainties  of  language.  Had  the  whole 
Arian  party  taken  the  test  of  the  “  Homoousion,”  her 
difficulties  would  have  been  greater  than  what  they  were. 
But  this  mercy  is  shown  to  her.  By  a  course  of  steps 
which  we  cannot  analyse  or  follow,  a  word  gets  to  have  a 
particular  meaning  so  stamped  upon,  and  connaturalised 


Theory  of  Development. 


181 


with  it,  that  it  becomes  an  obvious  hypocrisy  and  deceit 
for  any  one  to  take  that  word  in  a  different  sense  of  his 
own.  The  history  of  language,  indeed,  would,  we  doubt 
not,  if  accurately  and  deeply  examined,  exhibit  in  this 
very  point  of  view  as  signal  proofs  of  the  overruling 
providence  of  God  as  any  other  department  of  history. 
The  Church,  by  her  use  of  the  word  “  Homoousion,”  had 
fastened  her  exclusive  sense  upon  it  so  strongly  before  the 
Hicene  Council,  that  the  Arians  encountered  it  defined 
and  pre-occupied,  and  were  shut  out  by  it.  But  all  this 
belongs  to  the  history  of  language  and  not  of  doctrine. 
The  Church  gave  her  own  definite  meaning  to  the  word 
“  Homoousion ;  ”  that  definite  meaning,  therefore,  pre¬ 
ceded  her  use  of  the  word,  and  her  doctrine  must  have 
been  antecedently  the  same  with  that  which  the  “  Homo- 

i/ 

ousion”  subsequently  expressed,  in  order  to  have  made 
the  “  Homoousion”  express  it. 

We  have  anticipated,  in  these  remarks,  the  other  point 
we  are  coming  to.  We  have,  then,  in  the  second  place, 
particular  phrases  and  expressions  rejected  in  after  times 
used  in  earlier.  The  expressions  brought  forward  by  a 
writer  of  the  modern  Petavian  school  are  such  as  St. 
Ignatius’s,  the  Son  of  God,  “  according  to  the  will  and 
power  of  God St.  Justin’s,  “  Him  who,  by  the  will  of 
the  Father,  is  with  God,  as  being  His  Son,  etc. St. 
Justin’s  again,  “  Derived  from  the  Father  before  all  crea¬ 
tures  by  His  power  and  will;”  Tatian’s,  “The  word 
springing  forth  from  the  Divine  simplicity  at  His  will ;  ” 
St.  Hippolytus’s,  “  Whom  God  the  Father  having  willed, 
begat  as  He  willed Novatian’s,  “From  whom,  when  He 
willed,  His  Son  the  Word  was  born  that  in  the  Becogni- 
tions  attributed  to  St.  Clement,  that  “  God  begat  Him, 
voluntate  yrcecedenti :  ”  Tertullian’s,  “  As  soon  as  God 
willed:”  that  in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions,  “At  the 


182 


Theory  of  Development. 


pleasure  of  tlie  Father:”  the  virovp^ia  (ministration)  of 
the  Son  of  God,  found  in  St.  Theophilus  and  St.  Irenseus  : 
St.  Hippolytus’s  again,  “God  over  all,  because  God  the 
Father  has  put  all  things  under  his  feet;”  St.  Justin’s 
again,  “  called  God  from  His  being  the  first-born  Son  of 
all  creatures.”  How,  without  entering  into  the  question 
of  the  genuineness  of  all  the  passages  in  which  these 
expressions  are  found,  or  the  genuineness  of  all  works  in 
which  the  passages  are,  or  the  comparative  authority  of 
the  different  writers  (for  some  names  here  are  heretical 
ones,  and  others  of  unsound  estimation  from  the  first), 
it  is  evident  that  we  have  here  a  set  of  expressions  on  a 
particular  subject,  one  of  a  most  mysterious,  incompre¬ 
hensible,  and  awful  character,  the  subject,  viz.,  of  God 
the  Son’s  derivation  from,  and  subordinateness  to,  qua 
derivation  from,  God  the  Father.  It  is  obvious  that  this 
is  a  subject  on  which  it  is  most  difficult  to  speak  with 
perfect  accuracy,  so  as  to  avoid,  in  expressing  the  idea  of 
derivation  and  subordinateness,  the  ideas  of  posteriority 
in  time,  and  inferiority  of  nature.  Our  natural  and  ordi¬ 
nary  idea  of  derivation  connects  posteriority  with  it,  and 
proceeds  to  connect  a  certain  inferiority  of  nature  with 
that  posteriority.  Here  is  a  subject,  then,  on  which  it 
would  be  most  unfair  to  judge  particular  expressions  on 
a  standard  of  literal  accuracy,  and  throw  upon  them  the 
whole  meaning  which  can  be  extracted  from  them  by 
themselves  without  alleviation  or  set-off.  Persons  in 
expressing  one  side  of  truth  will  sometimes  express  it 
too  boldly,  while,  after  all,  they  only  profess  it  to  be  an 
expression  of  one  side  of  truth,  and  not  to  contradict 
another.  We  have,  accordingly,  a  set  of  expressions  put 
before  us,  which,  taken  as  a  whole  (though  of  some  of 
them  we  doubt  whether  even  this  can  be  said),  are  not 
what  later  writers  would  use ;  and  they  are  extracted 


Theory  of  Development.  183 

from  the  books  of  all  their  respective  writers,  and  put 
before  ns  in  that  collective  insulation  which  tells  upon 
the  imagination.  But  what,  after  all,  can  any  fair  mind 
draw  from  this,  which  can  seriously  shake  our  confidence 
in  the  faith  of  the  writers,  if  their  works,  as  a  whole,  and 
any  other  valid  evidence  about  them,  exhibit  them  as 
sound  ?  What  if  St.  Ignatius  says,  “  The  Son  of  God, 
according  to  the  will  and  power  of  God  we  really  cannot 
see  the  harm  of  the  words,  though  such  expressions  may 
doubtless  be  perverted.  If  it  is  true  that  the  Son  is  de¬ 
rived  from  the  Bather,  it  cannot  be  in  itself  wrong  to  say 
that  He  is  derived  from  the  Father  in  accordance  with  the 
Father’s  attributes ;  and  will  and  power  are  attributes  of 
the  Father.  He  is  not  derived  against  the  Father’s  will 
and  power,  and  therefore  He  is  derived  in  accordance  with 
them.  The  idea  of  “  will,”  indeed,  carries  one  or  two  of 
the  expressions  before  us  into  the  idea  of  precedence  in 
that  will,  because  we  naturally  look  upon  will  as  pre¬ 
cedent  to  what  it  wills ;  and  so  in  the  order  of  nature  it 
is,  though  in  order  of  time  the  eternal  will  and  eternal 
act  are  coeval, — a  truth  with  which  these  expressions  are 
compatible.  However,  the  writers  are  here  wishing  to 
express  a  sacred  truth  most  difficult  to  express ;  and  if, 
before  the  experience  of  the  perversion  of  such  modes  of 
speaking  by  subsequent  heretics,  they  do  occasionally, 
and  quite  as  an  exception,  carry  such  modes  of  speaking 
too  far,  it  proves  very  little.  Indeed,  in  some  instances 
which  are  urged,  it  is  quite  obvious  on  the  surface  that 
the  writer  is  really  wishing  to  express  the  idea  of  the 
Son’s  generation  being  absolutely  coeval  with  the  eternal 
Being  of  the  Father;  and  is  using  the  examples  from  the 
natural  world,  where  the  derivation  is  most  immediately 
consequent  upon  the  existence  of  the  thing  derived  from, 
in  order  vividly  to  impress  that  idea  of  coeval  upon  the 


184 


Theory  of  Development. 


reader’s  mind.  “  The  Son,”  says  St.  Clement  of  Alexan¬ 
dria,  ‘‘issues  from  the  Father  quicker  than  the  light  from 
the  sun.”  Here,  however,  the  very  aim  of  the  illustration 
to  express  simultaneousness  is  turned  against  it,  and 
special  attention  is  called  to  the  word  “quicker”  as  if  we 
were  to  infer  that  the  writer  had  only  degrees  of  quickness 
in  his  mind,  and  only  made  the  Son’s  generation  from 
His  source  “ quicker”  than  that  of  light  from  its,  not 
absolutely  coeval  with  it.  We  have  no  time,  however,  for 
dwelling  on  the  frivolity  of  such  criticism.  We  only  want 
to  have  it  understood  what  the  task  of  these  early  writers 
was,  and  what  the  subject  they  had  to  deal  with,  in  the 
instance  of  these  casual  expressions  quoted  from  them. 

In  connection,  again,  with  these  modes  of  speaking,  and 
with  the  general  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  derivation  and 
subordinateness  as  the  Son,  is  the  view  held  by  some  of 
the  early  Fathers  of  the  X070?  ev^LaOercs  and  X0709  irpo- 
(popL/cos,  which  we  will  just  notice,  as  an  interpretation  is 
suggested  by  Mr.  Newman  for  it.  Some  early  Fathers, 
besides  the  eternal  generation  of  the  Son,  attributed  a 
second  and  external  generation  to  Him  on  His  going 
forth  to  create  the  universe.  He  had,  from  all  eternity, 
resided  as  the  Hoyo?,  the  second  Person  in  the  Godhead, 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  But  He  left  the  bosom  of 
Flis  Father,  in  a  sense,  when  lie  went  forth  to  create  ; 
and  therefore  the  act  of  creation  was  described  as  a  kind 
of  second  generation  on  the  Son’s  part.  He  was  thus 
spoken  of,  occasionally,  as  generated  in  time,  just  before 
the  creation  of  the  world — the  A 070?  7 rpocpopcrcos ;  such 
generation,  in  reality,  not  at  all  interfering  with  His 
eternal  generation  and  Personal  existence  from  all 
eternity,  as  the  A 0709  eVchdPero?,  to  which  the  same 
writers  perpetually  testify.  The  doctrine  is  thus  first 
stated,  and  then  has  an  explanation  suggested  for  it. 


Theory  of  Development. 


185 


“  Five  early  writers,  Athenagoras,  Tatian,  Theophilus,  Hip- 
poly  tus,  and  Novatian,  of  whom  the  authority  of  Hippolytus 
is  very  great,  not  to  speak  of  Theophilus  and  Athenagoras, 
whatever  be  thought  of  Tatian  and  Novatian,  seem  to  speak 
of  Divine  generation  as  taking  place  immediately  before  the 
creation  of  the  world,  that  is,  as  if  not  eternal ;  though  at 
the  same  time  they  teach  that  our  Lord  existed  before  that 
generation.  In  other  words,  they  seem  to  teach  that  He  was 
the  Word  from  eternity,  and  became  the  Son  at  the  beginning 
of  all  things,  some  of  them  expressly  considering  Him,  first, 
as  the  A0709  ivScaOeros,  or  Beason,  in  the  Father,  or  (as  may 
be  speciously  represented)  a  mere  attribute;  next,  as  the  A0709 
7rpo(fiopLKb< ?,  or  Word.  This  doctrine,  when  divested  of  figure, 
and  put  into  literal  statement,  might  appear  nothing  more  or 
less  than  this, — that  at  the  beginning  of  the  world  the  Son 
was  created  after  the  likeness  of  the  Divine  attribute  of  Keason, 
as  its  image  or  expression,  and  thereby  became  the  Divine 
Word;  was  made  the  instrument  of  creation,  called  the  Son 
from  that  ineffable  favour  and  adoption  which  God  had  be¬ 
stowed  on  Him,  and  in  due  time  sent  into  the  world  to 
manifest  God’s  perfections  to  mankind, — which,  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  say,  is  the  doctrine  of  Arianism.” — Note  upon 
Athanasius  against  the  Arians,  p.  272. 

With  respect  to  such  an  explanation  as  this,  whether 
Mr.  Newman  means  to  suggest  it  as  a  true  or  false  one, 
from  whatever  quarter  it  comes,  we  might  make  some 
obvious  remarks,  and  say  that,  on  such  principles  of 
criticism,  it  will  be  utterly  impossible  for  any  author  to 
protect  his  meaning.  If  writers  directly  attribute 
personality  from  all  eternity  to  the  A 070?  before  His 
going  forth  to  create  the  world,  and  a  critic  interprets 
that  personality  into  a  metaphor,  and  leaves  the  X0709  a 
mere  Divine  attribute,  he  has  taken  the  law  simply  into 
his  hands.  But  we  are  calling  attention  now  to  the 
Patristic  view  itself,  and  the  particular  subject  upon 
which  it  and  the  ambiguities  of  expression  likely  to  be 
connected  with  it  turn. 


1 86 


Theory  of  Development. 


Here,  then,  is  a  whole  line  of  expression  before  us, 
which  is,  be  it  observed,  the  line  of  expression  which  is 
urged  against  the  early  Fathers,  and  which  has,  as  we 
see,  reference  to  and  gathers  round  a  particular  doctrine. 
It  is  to  be  remarked  next  that  that  doctrine  is  one 
which  has  been  allowed  by  the  Church,  since  their  time, 
to  fall  into  the  shade ;  and  so  been  made,  with  all  the 
language  connected  with  it,  comparatively  strange  to 
modern  ears.  The  doctrine  of  the  subordination,  qua 
origination,  of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  with  all 
that  mode  of  viewing  and  speaking  of  it  which  went 
along  with  it,  has  been  thrown  into  the  background  in 
later  ages  ;  and  the  Church  has,  since  that  day,  avoided 
all  verbal  dangers  on  this  subject,  by  avoiding  the  sub¬ 
ject  itself  altogether.  “  As  the  Arian  controversy  pro¬ 
ceeded,”  says  Mr.  Newman,  “  a  tendency  was  elicited  to 
contemplate  our  Lord  more  distinctly  in  His  absolute 
perfections  than  in  His  relation  to  the  First  Person  of  the 
Blessed  Trinity.  Thus  whereas  the  Nicene  Creed  speaks 
of  the  ‘  Father  Almighty/  and  ‘  His  only-begotten  Son 
our  Lord,  God  from  God,  Light  from  Light,  Very  God 
from  Very  God/  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  ‘  the  Lord  and 
Giver  of  Life/  we  are  told  in  the  Athanasian  of  ‘  the 
Father  eternal,  the  Son  eternal,  and  the  Holy  Ghost 
eternal and  that  none  is  afore  or  after  other,  none 
is  greater  or  less  than  another.”  “  The  doctrine  of  the 
Son’s  subordination  to  the  Eternal  Father,  which  formed 
so  prominent  a  feature  in  ante-Mcene  theology,  com¬ 
paratively  fell  into  the  shade.”1  By  “  having  fallen  into 
the  shade,”  we  suppose  he  does  not  mean  ceased  to  be 
true  :  for  once  true,  it  must  be  so  alwavs  ;  and  we  recite 
it  in  the  Nicene  Creed  at  this  day.  And  therefore  what 
such  a  statement  of  the  case  on  the  whole  amounts  to,  is 

1  Page  400. 


Theory  of  Development . 


187 


little  more  than  this  :  That  a  very  mysterious  and  awful 
doctrine,  connected  with  our  Lord's  nature,  was  contem¬ 
plated  and  treated  of  by  theologians  of  the  early  Church  ; 
but  that  though  a  perfectly  true  and  sacred  doctrine  in 
itself,  its  tenderness  as  a  matter  of  theological  handling 
led  to  expressions,  occasionally,  among  theologians,  which 
Arians  and  other  heretics  took  advantage  of,  and  that 
therefore  the  Church  thought  it  wisest  to  discourage 
further  dwelling  upon  it.  Such  a  statement  of  the  case 
as  this,  wTe  say,  does  not  make  the  real  doctrinal  meaning 
at  the  bottom  of  all  these  expressions  an  erroneous  and 
unsound  one,  but  only  one  which  has  been  thrown  into 
the  background  and  not  attended  to  in  later  times ;  and 
therefore,  at  the  worst,  make  such  expressions  over¬ 
statements  of  real  truth,  and  not  statements  of  error. 

Upon  objections,  then,  in  general  to  the  orthodoxy  of 
the  ante-Mcene  Lathers,  on  the  ground  of  this  whole 
line  of  expression  wdiich  is  found  in  them,  there  is  one 
very  obvious  remark,  suggested  by  what  we  have  been 
saying,  to  be  made,  and  that  is,  that  the  modern  objector 
forgets,  in  making  such  a  charge,  that  those  Lathers  held 
a  deep  view  on  this  subject,  which  is  not  put  forward  in 
the  Church  now,  and  with  which  the  objector  himself  is 
not  familiar.  He  comes  to  a  particular  part  of  their 
language,  without  carrying  their  idea  to  it,  and  says,  what 
strange  language  !  But  carry  their  idea  to  it,  and  the 
language  is  not  strange.  It  is  just  like  any  other  case  of 
theological  difference  of  view  on  a  subject.  One  theolo¬ 
gian  charges  another  with  unsound  language  :  the  latter 
says,  You  accuse  my  language  because  you  do  not  under¬ 
stand  my  idea  :  let  me  acquaint  you  with  my  idea,  and  if 
you  think  that  wrong,  then  you  have  a  good  and  solid 
ground  against  me ;  but  do  not  go  on  assailing  fragments 
and  outsides,  this  word,  and  that  phrase,  blindly  and 


1 88 


Theory  of  Development. 


without  having  the  key  to  them.  The  ante-Nicene 
Fathers  may  make  the  same  answer  to  their  modern 
interpreters.  They  may  say,  You  are  judging  our  lan¬ 
guage,  and  yet,  in  the  same  breath,  you  confess  that  you 
have  allowed  the  idea  which  animated  and  explains  it  “  to 
fall  into  the  shade.”  You  come  to  us,  you  confess, 
without  the  key  to  us,  and  then  judge  us  as  if  you  had  it. 
You  attack  our  language,  here  and  there,  in  this  and  that 
word,  half  word,  half  sentence ;  is  not  this  poor  work  ? 
What  if  you  can  pick  a  hole  in  our  mere  language  here 
and  there  ?  you  prove  nothing  more  in  our  case  than 
what,  in  the  full  light  of  all  post-Nicene  doctrine,  happens 
in  your  own  every  day.  Condemn  our  idea,  our  doctrine  ; 
and  that  is  a  fair,  solid  argumentative  line  to  take.  But  if 
you  cannot  do  this, — if  that  idea  and  doctrine  confronts 
you  in  the  Mcene  Creed,  and  you  can  only  say  that, 
though  perfectly  true,  “  it  has  fallen  into  the  shade,” — it 
is  trivial  and  frivolous  work  carping  at  particular  expres¬ 
sions  of  it.  Such  appears,  we  say,  to  be  the  state  of  the 
case  with  respect  to  ante-Mcene  writers.  The  modern 
interpreter  comes  and  sees  occasional  language  there 
which  he  is  not  accustomed  to.  He  instantly  assumes 
that  such  language  expresses  a  rude,  incipient,  and  elemen¬ 
tary  state  of  Christian  truth,  and  forgets  that  it  may  only 
express,  after  all,  a  particular  truth  which  he  is  not 
familiar  with  :  he  assumes  that  it  expresses  the  absence 
of  a  doctrine  which  has  been  now  arrived  at,  and  forgets 
that  it  may  express  the  presence  of  a  doctrine  which  has 
been  laid  aside.  Mr.  Newman  is  constantly  referring  to 
the  “  Catholic  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,”  as  not  having  been 
held  by  the  early  Fathers,  i.e.  being  then  only  in  process  of 
formation,  in  an  incipient  and  elementary  state.  But  would 
it  not  be  much  truer  to  say  that  they  held  it  just  as  much 
as  he  himself  does,  but  held  a  particular  doctrine  in  connec- 


Theory  of  Development. 


189 


tion  with  it,  which,  with  him,  has  “  fallen  into  the  shade.” 
He  has  one  mode  of  holding  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
which  puts  aside  the  doctrine  of  the  subordination  of  the 
Second  Person  ;  the  Fathers  had  another  mode  of  holding 
it  which  put  forward  that  doctrine.  Their  theology  on 
the  subject  was  different  from  his.  But  it  is  a  further 
question,  if  this  doctrine  is  true,  as  it  undoubtedly  is,  and 
the  Fathers  held  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  with,  and  the 
modern  interpreter  without,  the  appeal  to  it,  whether 
their  theology  is,  therefore,  less  sound  and  less  perfect 
than  his. 

Thus  much  for  the  alleged  insufficiency,  arising  either 
from  defects  or  difficulties  of  ante-Nicene  documentary 
evidence  :  and  now  for  a  concluding  remark  upon  this 
argument  as  a  whole.  The  argument  then  is,  that  coming 
to  the  ante-Nicene  documents  with  no  other  evidence  to 
depend  on  for  the  fact  in  question  but  those  documents 
themselves, — coming  to  them  with  nothing  to  prepossess 
or  guide  our  judgment  from  any  other  quarter,  coming  to 
them  as  simply  so  much  extant  covered  parchment,  with 
our  minds  blank, — we  could  not  gather  the  fact  from  them 
that  the  writers  held  the  true  orthodox  belief  which  the 
Church  held  afterwards.  Now  to  this  we  might  answer 
that  we  did  not  admit  such  insufficiency  in  those  docu¬ 
ments  even  upon  this  isolated  basis  ;  that  if  the  New 
Testament  would  as  a  whole,  without  other  aid  than  its 
own  letter,  prove  to  a  really  candid  and  religious  mind 
the  proper  Divinity  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  ante-Nicene 
documents  would  do  the  same.  And  we  might  appeal  to 
statement  upon  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Deus 
ex  Deo  as  accurate,  subtle,  and  unquestionable  as  could  be 
found  in  any  post-Nicene  writer.  But  it  is  not  necessary 
to  recur  to  such  a  ground  as  this. 

For,  be  it  observed,  the  whole  line  of  argument  which 


190  Theory  of  Development. 

we  have  been  dealing  with  here,  simply  omits  the  strong 
positive  historical  testimony  there  is,  before  we  come  to 
examine  the  documents  of  the  ante-Nicene  Church,  to  the 
fact  of  what  the  doctrine  of  that  Church  was.  We  have 
the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  whole  body  of  Nicene 
Fathers  to  the  fact  that  they  had  received  the  doctrine 
they  asserted  from  their  predecessors  in  the  Church ; 
which  predecessors  had  asserted  that  they  had  received  it 
from  their  predecessors,  and  so  on  up  to  the  age  of  the 
Apostles.  It  was  the  full  historical  belief  of  the  Nicene 
Church  that  its  doctrine  had  been  the  doctrine  of  the 
ante-Nicene  up  to  the  commencement  of  Christianity.  Mr. 
Newman  appears,  indeed,  to  acknowledge  this  evidence, 
but  does  not ;  for  though  he  maintains  the  “  subsequent 
profession  of  this  doctrine  as  a  presumption  that  it  was 
held  before,’’  he  only  means  the  presumption  from  the 
subsequent  profession  of  a  truth  that  there  were  previous 
elementary  anticipations  of  it ;  and  makes  no  mention  of 
a  declaration  ever  accompanying  that  subsequent  profes¬ 
sion,  which  spoke  to  that  truth’s  antiquity  and  existence 
as  the  same  identical  truth  as  then  professed  from  the 
first.  So  here  is  a  body  of  plain,  historical  evidence, 
before  coming  to  ante-Nicene  documents,  which  the 
argument  before  us  simply  omits.  And  whereas  Mr. 
Newman  invalidates  all  explanation  of  difficulties  in  the 
ante-Nicene  Fathers,  on  the  ground  that  to  enter  upon  it 
“  is  to  assume  that  they  are  all  of  one  school,  which  is  the 
point  to  be  proved  here  is  this  very  point  proved  upon 
unanimous  historical  testimony;  that  is,  if,  as  orthodox 
members  of  the  Church  of  their  day,  to  have  all  one  creed 
is  to  be  “  of  one  school.”  We  have,  we  say,  this  positive 
evidence  as  to  what  the  creed  of  the  ante-Nicene  Church 
was,  prior  to  coming  at  all  to  the  examination  of  the 
documents  of  the  ante-Nicene  Church.  We  come  to  the 


Theory  of  Development. 


191 


examination  of  them,  as  we  do  to  that  of  the  Scriptures, 
with  the  rule  of  historical  tradition  to  guide  us, — a  tradi¬ 
tion  speaking  directly  to  the  fact  of  what  the  belief  from 
which  those  documents  issued  was.  Every  rule  of  proof 
requires  that  the  insufficiency  of  evidence  in  one  quarter 
should  he  no  obstacle  whatever  to  the  weight  of  evidence 
in  another  ;  and  not  only  permits,  but  compels  the  weaker 
and  obscurer  part  of  evidence  to  receive  light  from  the 
stronger.  Granting,  then,  ever  so  much  insufficiency  in 
the  ante-Nicene  documents,  taken  by  themselves,  to  prove 
the  point  of  ante-lSTicene  belief,  here  is  positive  evidence 
from  another  quarter,  011  that  point,  which  only  requires 
the  absence  of  positive  counter-evidence  to  be  of  force 
and  hold  its  ground.  Let  but  the  ante-Nicene  documents 
not  positively  contradict  the  historical  testimony  which 
accompanies  us  to  them  ;  let  them  but  simply  fall  in  with, 
and  negatively  coincide  with  it,  and  that  negative  coin¬ 
cidence  becomes  at  once  a  confirmation  of  the  positive 
truth,  instead  of  that  positive  proof  being  weakened  by 
the  negative  one.  It  is  a  case  which  we  meet  with  every 
day  in  questions  of  evidence.  How  much  more  than  this 
negative  proof  there  is  in  the  ante-Nicene  writings  we 
are  not,  as  we  say,  concerned  with  proving  here  ;  it  is 
sufficient  that  they  only  bear  out  this  universal  and 
undoubting  testimony  with  respect  to  the  faith  which 
produced  them,  and  that  the  tradition  of  the  Hicene  age 
on  that  point  is  clear,  unanimous  and  uncontradicted. 

It  will  be  said,  perhaps,  that  this  argument  is,  after  all, 
only  an  appeal  to  the  later  doctrine  as  a  key  to  the  earlier 
one,  and  that  is  just  what  the  doctrine  of  development 
does.  It  appears  to  be  thought  by  some  impossible  to 
refer  to  subsequent  evidence  with  respect  to  early  belief, 
without  referring  to  it  as  a  proof  of  the  elementary  state 
of  that  belief  prior  to  the  age  of  this  subsequent  evidence ; 


192 


Theory  of  Development. 


and,  accordingly,  they  meet  all  appeal,  of  whatever  kind, 
to  evidence  of  a  later  age,  with  the  general  assertion  that 
we  are  implying  an  after-growth  by  appealing  to  it.  But 
this  is  to  confound  two  totally  distinct  things  ;  later  evi¬ 
dence  may  prove  what  was  early  doctrine,  without  later 
growth  having  formed  it.  An  historian  does  not  create 
by  relating ;  evidence  does  not  make  by  proving.  Nicene 
testimony  can  appeal  to  ante-Mcene  fact  as  its  subject 
simply,  and  not  as  its  work.  If  it  is  testimony  it  must  do 
so.  For  testimony  must  act  as  testimony,  and  cannot 
possibly  act  in  any  other  capacity. 

Such  is  the  fact,  then,  which  the  argument  before  us 
omits.  We  will  add  that  Mr.  Newman  does  notice  it  in 
another  place,  and  out  of  this  argumentative  connection  ; 
and  we  will  give  first  his  notice,  and  then  his  explanation 
of  it. 

“  Christians  were  bound  to  defend  and  to  transmit  the  faith 
which  they  had  received,  and  they  received  it  from  the  rulers 
of  the  Church ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  the  duty  of 
those  rulers  to  watch  over  and  define  this  traditionary  faith. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  go  over  ground  which  has  been  traversed 
so  often  of  late  years.  St.  Irenseus  brings  the  subject  before 
us  in  his  description  of  St.  Polycarp,  part  of  which  has  already 
been  quoted,  and  to  it  we  may  limit  ourselves.  4  Polycarp, ’ 
he  says,  when  writing  against  the  Gnostics,  4  whom  we  have 
seen  in  our  first  youth,  ever  taught  those  lessons  which  he 
learned  from  the  Apostles,  which  the  Church  also  transmits, 
which  alone  are  true.  .  .  .’  Nor  was  this  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  one  school  only,  which  might  be  ignorant  of  philo¬ 
sophy  ;  the  cultivated  minds  of  the  Alexandrian  Fathers, 
who  are  said  to  owe  so  much  to  Pagan  science,  certainly 
showed  no  gratitude  or  reverence  towards  their  alleged  in¬ 
structress,  but  maintained  the  supremacy  of  Catholic  Tradition. 
Clement  speaks  of  heretical  teachers  as  perverting  Scripture, 
and  essaying  the  gate  of  heaven  with  a  false  key ;  not  raising 
the  veil,  as  he  and  his,  by  means  of  tradition  from  Christ,  but 


Theory  of  Development. 


193 


digging  through  the  Church’s  wall.  .  .  .  ‘  When  the  Mar- 
cionites,  Valentinians,  and  the  like/  says  Origen,  6  appeal  to 
apocryphal  works,  they  are  saying,  “Christ  is  in  the  desert;” 
when  to  canonical  Scripture,  “Lo,  He  is  in  the  chambers;” 
but  we  must  not  depart  from  that  first  and  ecclesiastical  tra¬ 
dition,  nor  believe  otherwise  than  as  the  Churches  of  God  by 
succession  have  transmitted  to  us.’  And  it  is  recorded  of 
him  in  his  youth  that  he  never  could  be  brought  to  attend 
the  prayers  of  a  heretic  who  was  in  the  house  of  his  patroness, 
from  abomination  of  his  doctrine — ‘  observing,’  adds  Eusebius, 
‘  the  rule  of  the  church.’  Eusebius  too  himself,  unsatisfac¬ 
tory  as  is  his  own  theology,  cannot  break  from  this  funda¬ 
mental  rule ;  he  ever  speaks  of  the  Gnostic  teachers,  the  chief 
heretics  of  his  period  (at  least,  before  the  rise  of  Arianism), 
in  terms  most  expressive  of  abhorrence  and  disgust.  The 
African,  Syrian,  and  Arian  schools  are  additional  witnesses ; 
Tertullian,  at  Carthage,  was  strenuous  for  the  dogmatic  prin¬ 
ciple,  even  after  he  had  given  up  the  traditional.  The  Fathers 
of  Asia  Minor,  who  excommunicated  Noetus,  rehearse  the 
creed,  and  add,  ‘We  declare  as  we  have  learned  ;’  the  Fathers 
of  Antioch,  who  depose  Paul  of  Samosata,  set  down  in  writing 
the  creed  from  Scripture,  ‘  which,’  they  say,  ‘  we  received  from 
the  beginning,  and  have,  by  tradition  and  in  custody,  in  the 
Catholic  and  Holy  Church  until  this  day  by  succession,  as 
preached  by  the  blessed  Apostles,  who  were  eye-witnesses 
and  ministers  of  the  word.  .  .  .  Who  ever  heard  the  like 
hitherto  V  says  St.  Athanasius,  of  Apollinarianism  :  ‘who  was 
the  teacher  of  it 'l  who  the  hearer1?  “From  Sion  shall  go 
forth  the  Faw  of  God,  and  the  Word  of  the  Lord  from  Jeru¬ 
salem;”  but  from  whence  hath  this  gone  forth?  What  hell 
hath  burst  out  with  it  ?  ’  The  Fathers  at  Nicsea  stopped  their 
ears ;  St.  Irenseus,  as  above  quoted,  says  that  St.  Polycarp,  had 
he  heard  the  Gnostic  blasphemies,  would  have  stopped  his 
ears,  and  deplored  the  times  for  which  he  was  reserved.  They 
anathematised  the  doctrine,  not  because  it  was  old,  but  be¬ 
cause  it  was  new.”1 

Now,  such  a  passage  as  this  appears  to,  and  to  an 
ordinary  reader  would,  convey  the  notion  that  Mr.  New- 

1  Page  343. 

N 


i94 


Theory  of  Development. 


man  thoroughly  estimated  the  testimony  we  have  been 
alluding  to  for  the  perfect  identity  of  Christian  doctrine 
in  subsequent  and  in  earliest  times ;  for  the  antiquity,  in 
the  obvious  sense  of  the  word,  as  opposed  to  the  after¬ 
formation  of  Christian  fundamental  knowledge.  But  on 
coming  to  what  immediately  follows  it,  we  find  that  all 
this  acknowledgment  of  early  testimony  has  been  intro¬ 
duced  for  the  very  purpose  of  stopping  this  natural  infer¬ 
ence  from  it.  The  writer  proceeds  immediately  to  turn 
this  very  testimony  against  itself,  and  to  draw,  by  an 
ingenious  turn  of  reasoning,  from  that  express  witness  to 
the  fact  that  such  doctrine  was  old,  the  immediate  infer¬ 
ence  that  it  was  new.  Let  us  see  :  Christians  were  very 
much  startled  at  the  contrary  doctrine,  as  soon  as  ever 
taught  by  heretics,  and  shut  their  ears  in  horror.  The 
obvious  inference  from  such  a  fact  would  be,  that  this 
doctrine  contradicted  some  old  known  familiar  truth. 
But  no,  says  Mr.  Newman,  it  shows  just  the  contrary  : 
“  The  doctrine  in  question  being  strange  and  startling,  it 
follows  that  the  truth,  which  was  its  contradictory,  had  also 
been  unknown  to  them  hitherto.”1  We  must  really  say 
that  we  hardly  know  how  to  reply  to  such  reasoning  as 
this.  There  is  something  so  strange  in  inferring  from  the 
intensity  with  which  men  felt  a  contradiction, — the  fact 
that  they  had  never  known  that  which  it  was  a  contradic¬ 
tion  to.  Ordinary  people  would  ask  with  some  surprise, 
how  the  contradiction  could  be  seen  before  the  truth  was ; 
but  Mr.  Newman  asks,  with  equal  and  quite  as  sincere 
surprise,  how  the  truth  could  be  seen  before  the  contradic¬ 
tion  was.  Is  no  truth,  however,  seen  till  it  is  contradicted  ? 
And  is  it  in  the  power  of  shameless  and  unlimited 

1  Page  344.  In  tlie  recent  edition  (page  351)  the  passage  stands, 
“  It  follows  that  the  truth,  which  was  its  contradictory,  was  also  in 
some  respects  unknown  to  them  hitherto.” 


Theory  of  Development . 


x95 


paradox  to  create  at  any  moment  the  new  truths,  that 
fire  burns  and  water  flows,  that  the  eye  sees  and  the  ear 
hears,  and  that  we  have  bodies  and  souls  ?  Contradic¬ 
tion  certainly  cannot  do  this.  And  if  it  cannot,  we  do 
not  see  how  it  could  create  and  make  known  the  great 
Christian  dogmas.  The  dogma,  as  plain,  simple,  and 
matter-of-fact  to  the  belief  as  it  is  incomprehensible  to 
the  intellect  and  unfathomable  to  meditation,  the  early 
Christian  knew  as  he  knew  a  fact,  because  he  was  told  it ; 
— -just  as  persons  know  other  things,  because  they  are  told 
them.  You  tell  a  person  a  thing ;  he  apprehends  what 
you  tell  him  ;  then  he  knows  that  thing.  It  is  not  neces¬ 
sary  that  somebody  else  should  come  and  contradict 
it  in  order  that  he  may  know  it.  There  is  something 
indeed  which  contradiction  does  do,  but  will  what  it 
does  do  be  much  to  Mr.  Newmans  purpose  in  this  argu¬ 
ment  ? 

Contradiction,  undoubtedly,  has  the  effect  of  sharpen¬ 
ing  our  logical  view  of  a  truth,  and  we  gain  in  the  process 
of  answering  a  contradiction  a  more  definite  and  fuller 
logical  image  of  the  truth  we  defend.  Contradiction  to 

o  O 

what  we  know  elicits  new  expressions  of  that  knowledge, 
and  new  aspects  and  inferences  of  that  class  which  is 
identical  with  it.  But  to  do  this  is  not  to  give  us  that 
knowdedge  in  the  first  instance.  All  that  it  gives  us, 
which  wTe  had  not  before,  is  that  series  of  aspects  and  in¬ 
ferences,  that  argumentative  and  mathematical  issue  from 
the  substance,  which  is  identical  with  the  substance.  As 
we  find  ourselves  only  taken  back,  however,  here  to  an 
old  subject,  and  have  in  this  view  of  the  powers  of  con¬ 
tradiction  only  another  name  for  the  view  of  development 
itself,  we  need  not  repeat  arguments  which  we  have  al¬ 
ready  given  ;  and  need  only  say  that  the  new  expressions 
of  truth  which  contradiction  elicits,  just  as  the  expressions 


196 


Theory  of  Development. 


which  explanatory  development,  i.e.  explanation,  makes, 
being  one  and  the  same  thing,  are  neither  of  them  addi¬ 
tions  of  substantial  truth  ;  that  there  is  an  inference  from 
truth  which  the  precise  answer  to  contradiction  expresses 
for  the  first  time,  and  that  there  is  a  truth  itself  which  it 
does  not ;  and  that  to  perceive  one  of  these  inferences  from 
the  truth  for  the  first  time,  is  not  to  perceive  the  truth  for 
the  first  time ;  and  that  it  must  be  shown  that  it  is  the 
truth  itself  which  is  so  seen,  in  order  to  answer  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  the  arguer  in  the  present  case. 

One  remark,  however,  before  leaving  this  subject.  It 
appears  that  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  early  Church, 
age  after  age,  asserts  that  the  doctrine  it  taught  was 
the  same  identical  doctrine  with  the  doctrine  which  was 
delivered  by  the  Apostles,  and  was  received  in  the  most 
primitive  days.  It  appears  there  was  a  doctrine  so  strong, 
so  decided,  so  familiar,  that  it  was  able  on  the  very  first 
rise  of  any  contradiction  instantly  to  see  and  reject  it. 
The  process  of  actual  rejection  was  long,  because  heretics 
argued  and  explained,  and  it  took  time  to  expose  their 
sophistries.  But  the  feeling  of  rejection  was  full  and  im¬ 
mediate.  Orthodox  Christians  closed  their  ears  in  horror 
at  the  plain  contradiction  to  plain  known  sacred  truth. 
Here  then  is  strong,  plain,  unanimous  testimony  to  what 
was  early  doctrine.  An  ordinary  thinker  would  certainly 
say,  Here,  in  the  first  place,  is  so  much  deliberate  testi¬ 
mony  to  that  point ;  and  here,  moreover,  is  the  ipso  facto 
unconscious  testimony  which  the  doctrine  itself  gives  to 
its  own  antiquity,  by  being  able  from  the  very  first  to 
reject  immediately  anything  contradictory  to  it.  We 
argue  the  existence  of  substance  from  what  comes  against 
it  being  immediately  cast  off :  we  argue  the  existence  of 
the  truth,  from  its  immediately  casting  off  the  error  op¬ 
posed  to  it.  How  could  anything  but  the  idea  that  the 


Theory  of  Development. 


197 


Son  was  Very  God,  ever  exclude  the  idea  that  He  was  not 
Very  God :  and  this  latter  was  immediately  excluded  as 
soon  as  it  arose,  and  nobody  can  doubt  that  it  would  have 
been  immediately  excluded  from  the  first.  Nicene  doc¬ 
trine’s  antiquity  and  simple  identity  with  the  truth  of 
original  revelation  is  thus  what  these  facts  naturally  take 
us  to.  But  here  comes  an  argument  which  does  not  brinq 
counter  evidence — a  different  step  altogether,  and  quite  a 
legitimate  one, — but  which  explains  away  this  very  evi¬ 
dence  itself  into  meaning  something  quite  contrary  to 
what,  upon  a  plain  common  sense  view,  it  does  mean. 
For  here  is  an  argument  which  proves  that  this  very  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  Church  to  the  fact  of  its  doctrine  being  old, 
is  a  testimony  to  the  fact  of  its  being  new ;  and  infers 
from  early  Christians  being  astonished  at  error,  that  they 
did  not  know  the  truth.  Here  is  an  argument  which 
explains  away,  and  turns  against  itself,  the  very  fact  of 
that  universal  testimony  to  its  own  antiquity,  by  which 
the  Church’s  teaching,  to  a  natural  view,  establishes  that 
antiquity.  An  esoteric  interpretation  explains  the  loud 
assertions  of  the  Nicene  Fathers  and  all  the  after  Church 
as  to  this  fact,  to  mean  something  different  from  what  one 
would  naturally  understand  from  them  ;  or  says  that  the 
assertors  themselves  did  not  really  mean  what  they  thought 
they  meant ;  and  that  thinking  they  meant  that  they  had 
exactly  the  same  doctrine  with  the  early  one,  they  only 
really  meant  that  that  early  doctrine  was  the  seed  and 
rudiment  of  their  own,  it  having  grown  so  imperceptibly 
that  they  did  not  perceive  the  change.  A  philosophic 
criticism,  that  is  to  say,  refines  upon  the  facts  of  history, 
analogously  to  the  way  in  which  one  school  of  speculation 
refines  upon  the  idea  of  Inspiration,  and  another  upon  the 
idea  of  Conscience.  And  the  plain  witness  to  the  absolute 
identity  of  later  doctrine  with  early  melts  away. 


198 


Theory  of  Development. 


What  we  maintain  then  is,  that  the  Nicene  truth  is  not 
a  development  in  the  sense  in  which  Mr.  Newman  uses 
the  word,  that  the  whole  testimony  of  antiquity  declares 
the  contrary,  and  that  Mr.  Newman’s  arguments  to  prove 
that  it  was  not  held,  but  only  some  rudiments  of  it,  in 
ante-Nicene  times,  are  forced  and  unsatisfactory. 

Our  argument  has  now  to  take  another  direction,  and 
to  call  Mr.  Newman’s  attention  to  a  certain  result  of  his 
theory,  if  true,  which  we  cannot  see  how  it  can  avoid.  If 
it  be  really  true,  as  his  theory  implies,  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  maintained  at  Nic8ea  was  not 
the  received  doctrine  of  the  earlier  Church,  we  cannot, 
for  our  own  part,  understand  how  he  can  believe  that  that 
doctrine  was  an  original  doctrine  of  the  Christian  revela¬ 
tion,  and  one  which  the  Apostles  and  first  promulgators 
of  Christianity  taught.  We  are,  of  course,  dealing  with 
Mr.  Newman’s  argument  here,  and  not  for  an  instant  with 
his  personal  belief.  His  argument  appears  to  us  to  run, 
distinctly  and  quite  inevitably,  into  the  denial  of  the 
doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity  as  an  original  doctrine  of 
revelation.  For  if  that  doctrine  was  not  the  received  one 
of  the  early  Church,  and  of  the  age  of  the  ante-Nicene 
Fathers,  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  communicated  at 
the  Apostolic  era.  If  it  had  been,  it  would  have  been 
preserved,  and  been  the  received  doctrine ;  not  being  pre¬ 
served,  the  necessary  inference  is  that  it  had  never  been 
delivered.  The  argument  throws  us  back  upon  an  early 
Christianity,  of  which  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity 
was  no  part,  and  denies  that  doctrine  to  be  a  revelation 
from  the  mouths  of  the  first  teachers  of  Christianity ;  in 
other  words,  to  be  an  immediate  truth  of  inspiration  at  all. 

Indeed,  Mr.  Newman  is  himself  not  insensible  to  this 
tendency  of  his  theory,  and  he  endeavours  to  ward  it  off. 
He  does  this  by  occasional  disclaimers,  by  the  balance  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


199 


clauses,  by  protests  in  a  succeeding  sentence  against  the 
obvious  meaning  and  necessary  force  of  the  immediately 
preceding  one ;  and  he  endeavours  to  counteract  the  sub¬ 
stantial  tendency  of  the  argument  by  arbitrarily  putting 
aside  its  result  when  he  comes  across  it.  His  whole  mode 
of  arguing  here  shows  the  uneasy  and  conflicting  position. 
He  glides  out  of  one  statement  into  another,  and  glides 
back  again,  as  the  argument  itself,  or  as  its  check,  requires ; 
he  leaves  the  reader  in  doubt  what  he  really  means  to  say : 
he  asserts,  he  denies  :  though  how  the  denial  is  reconcil¬ 
able  with  the  assertion  does  not  appear,  and  which  of  the 
two  he  means  to  stand  does  not  appear.  Under  the  general 
haze  and  ambiguity  which  conflicting  sentences  create,  he 
admits  what  he  wants  to  admit  into  his  development 
theory,  and  excludes  what  he  wants  to  exclude  ;  and  while 
he  makes  Nicene  truth  the  development  of  something 
before  it,  does  not  fairly  face  the  result  that  what  was 
before  it  was  not  Nicene  truth.  For  example,  the  ambi¬ 
guity  between  denial  of  the  fact,  and  denial  of  the  evidence 
for  it.  He  leaves  us  in  doubt  whether  he  means  to  say  that 
the  Nicene  doctrine  was  really  not  received  in  early  times, 
or  that  it  was  received,  and  that  there  is  only  not  evidence 
for  its  reception.  For,  after  a  refutation  of  the  evidence 
for  that  doctrine,  of  which  the  apparent  effect  is  to  prove 
that  there  really  was  not  that  doctrine,  he  adds,  “  It  is  true 
that  the  subsequent  profession  of  the  doctrine  creates  a  pre¬ 
sumption  that  it  was  held  even  before  it  was  professed;”1 
and  of  certain  early  Church  documents  he  says,  “  The 
Creeds  of  that  early  day  make  no  mention  in  their  letter  of 
the  Catholic  doctrine  (of  the  Trinity)  at  all.  They  make 
mention  indeed  of  a  Three  ;  but  that  there  is  any  mystery 
in  the  doctrine  that  the  Three  are  One  ...  is  not 
stated,  and  never  could  be  gathered  from  them.  Of  course 


200 


Theory  of  Development. 


we  believe  that  they  imply  it,  or  rather  intend  it.  God 
forbid  we  should  do  otherwise;”1  as  if  he  meant  to 
say  that  the  doctrine  was  held,  but  only  that  certain  evi¬ 
dence  was  wanting.  And  after  arguing  against  the  ante- 
Nicene  Fathers,  he  adds  in  the  same  way:  “I  must  not 
be  supposed  to  be  ascribing  any  heresy  to  the  holy  men, 
whose  words  have  not  always  been  sufficiently  full  or 
exact  to  preclude  the  imputation.”2  “  Let  it  not  be  for 
a  moment  supposed  that  I  impugn  the  orthodoxy  of 
the  early  divines.”3  Again  we  have  the  old  ambiguity 
in  the  meaning  of  the  word  “  development  ”  itself,  as  to 
whether  development  affects  the  substance,  or  only  the 
expression  and  mode  of  representing  a  doctrine.  In  the 
latter  sense  it  does  not,  of  course,  prove  that  the  doctrine 
did  not  exist  before  ;  and  he  leaves  it  doubtful  on  parti¬ 
cular  occasions  whether  he  does  not  use  it  in  the  latter 
sense  only,  calling  the  “  developments  in  the  doctrines  of 
the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  mere  portions  of 
the  original  impression  and  modes  of  representing  it.”4 
Again,  a  general  distinction  between  explicit  and  implicit 
doctrine  suggests  that  doctrine  may  be  held  implicitly 
before  it  is  held  explicitly,  held  latently  and  unconsciously 
before  it  is  held  distinctly  and  positively.  Mr.  Newman’s 
Eoman  Catholic  opponent  in  America  describes  his  theory 
here  powerfully  and  accurately.  Mr.  Newman,  he  says, 
maintains 

“  a  slow,  painful,  and  laborious  working  out,  by  the  Church 
herself,  of  dogmatic  truth  from  implicit  feelings, — though 
what  kind  of  feeling  an  implicit  feeling  is,  we  are  unable  to 
say.  ‘  Thus  St.  J ustin  or  St.  Irenreus  might  be  without  any 
digested  ideas  of  Purgatory,  or  original  Sin,  yet  have  an 
intense  feeling ,  which  they  had  not  defined  or  located,  both 
of  the  fault  of  our  first  nature  and  of  the  liabilities  of  our 
nature  regenerate.’  It  is  obvious  from  the  whole  course  of 
1  Page  12.  2  Ibid.  3  Page  15.  4  Page  55. 


201 


Theory  of  Development. 

Mr.  Newman’s  reasoning,  that  he  would  predicate  of  the 
Church,  in  their  time,  what  he  here  predicates  of  St.  Justin 
and  St.  Irenseus.  The  Church  had  a  vague  yet  intense  feeling 
of  the  truth,  but  had  not  digested  it  into  formal  propositions 
or  definite  articles.  She  had  a  blind  instinct,  which,  under 
secret,  supernatural  guidance,  enabled  her  to  avoid  error  and 
to  pursue  the  regular  course  of  development.  She  had  a 
secret  feeling  of  the  truth,  as  one  may  say,  a  natural  taste  for 
it,  and  a  distaste  for  error;  yet  not  that  clear  and  distinct 
understanding  which  would  have  enabled  her  at  any  moment, 
on  any  given  point,  to  define  her  faith.  She  only  knew 
enough  of  truth  to  preserve  the  original  idea,  and  to  elaborate 
from  her  intense  feelings,  slowly  and  painfully,  as  time  went 
on,  now  one  dogma  and  now  another.  What  in  one  age  is 
feeling,  in  a  succeeding  age  becomes  opinion,  and  an  article  of 
faith  in  a  still  later  age.  This  new  article  gives  rise  to  a  new 
intense  feeling,  which,  in  its  turn,  in  a  subsequent  age  becomes 
opinion,  to  be  finally,  in  a  later  age  yet,  imposed  as  dogmatic 
truth.  This  is,  so  far  as  we  can  understand  it,  Mr.  Newman’s 
doctrine  of  development,  and  what  he  means  by  ‘  working  out 
dogmatic  truth  from  implicit  feelings.’  ” — Brownson’s  Quarterly 
Review ,  No.  XI.,  for  July  1846,  Boston,  U.S.  (a  Roman  Catho¬ 
lic  periodical.) 

Such  is  the  mode  of  explanation  which  would  reconcile 
the  fact  that  the  Nicene  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity 
was  the  development  of  anterior  doctrine,  with  the  fact 
that  it  had  been  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  from  the  first; 
and  denies  its  primitiveness  at  one  argumentative  call, 
and  allows  it  at  another. 

Now,  with  respect  to  these  ambiguities  and  modes  of 
warding  off  the  plain  consequences  of  an  argument,  we 
have  one  answer,  and  that  is  the  argument  itself.  Here 
is  an  argument  before  us,  and  the  question  is,  what  does 
that  argument  go  to  prove  ?  Bor  example,  with  respect 
to  the  ambiguity  first  mentioned  :  Does  that  argument 
allow  Mr.  Newman  really  to  oscillate  between  denying  the 
reception  itself  of  a  certain  doctrine  in  those  early  times, 


202 


Theory  of  Development. 


and  only  denying  the  evidence  of  it  ?  Certainly  not. 
However  he  may  alternate  himself  between  both  grounds, 
his  argument  stands  upon  one.  His  argument  requires 
that,  really  and  as  a  fact,  the  belief  entertained  by  the 
Nicene  Fathers  should  not  have  been  held  by  the  ante- 
Nicene.  For  his  argument  wants  a  parallel  case  to  the 
growth  of  later  doctrines,  such  as  Purgatory  and  the  Papal 
Infallibility.  It  must,  therefore,  maintain  that  there  is 
that  parallel  case,  and  not  only  that  there  is  no  evidence 
that  there  is  not.  It  urges  a  case  in  point,  viz.,  that  of 
Nicene  growth  as  sanctioning  Roman  growth  :  it  must, 
therefore,  maintain  that  there  is  Nicene  growth,  and  is 
ante-Nicene  shortcoming.  Moreover,  where  is  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  saying  that  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  for, 
and  that  there  was  not,  the  belief  of  Nicene  doctrine  in 
those  times  ?  An  arguer,  indeed,  who  maintains  the 
existence  of  any  positive  evidence  in  one  channel  for  a 
fact,  can,  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  that  evidence, 
afford  the  silence  or  neutrality  of  another  channel,  for 
that  silence  or  neutrality  does  not  negative  that  evidence  ; 
but  an  arguer  who  comes  with  no  evidence  from  any  one 
channel,  to  no  evidence  in  anv  other  too,  has  no  evidence 
at  all  for  a  fact,  and  therefore  that  fact  does  not  exist  in 
his  opinion.  A  person  who  takes  the  unanimous  witness 
of  the  Nicene  Fathers  to  the  early  belief  in  Mcene  doctrine 
as  decided  evidence  for  that  early  belief,  can  afford  silence 
or  neutrality  in  ante-Mcene  quarters  without  displacing 
that  fact;  but  Mr.  Newman,  who  does  not  do  this,  and 
comes  with  his  mind  blank  to  the  ante-Mcene  region  of 
evidence,  if  he  disallows  the  evidence  there  for  the  early 
belief  in  question,  disallows  all  evidence  for  it  at  all,  and 
therefore  must  hold  that  there  was  not  such  early  belief. 
Plowever,  we  need  not  go  into  such  considerations  as  these. 
Mr.  Newman’s  parallel  requires  Nicene  doctrine  to  be  a 


Theory  of  Development.  203 

real  substantial  development  of  an  earlier  doctrine  as  to 
our  Lord’s  nature.  Requiring  the  fact  of  an  earlier  doc¬ 
trine,  he  cannot  possibly  have  the  right  to  take  the  tone 
of  allowing  the  then  reception  of  the  later  one,  in  spite  of 
want  of  evidence  for  it.  His  argument  does  not  regret 
the  veil  over  a  complete  truth,  but  demands  the  existence 
of  a  seminal  one. 

So,  again,  with  respect  to  the  ambiguity  of  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  development,  which  makes  Nicene  development 
mean  substantial  growth  when  it  has  to  bear  out  Roman, 
and  only  explanation  when  it  has  to  guard  itself :  the 
answer  is  the  same.  Here  is  an  argument  before  us. 
That  argument  proceeds  upon  a  parallelism, — that  paral¬ 
lelism  is  the  parallelism  of  Hicene  growth  to  Roman 
growth.  Let  the  arguer  then  choose  whichever  he  likes 
of  these  two  meanings  of  the  word  development,  as  far  as 
himself  is  concerned ;  but  if  his  parallel  commits  him  to 
one,  that  one  he  must  take,  and  he  must  keep  to  it.  He 
says  that  the  doctrines  of  Purgatory,  of  the  Papal  Infalli¬ 
bility,  of  the  cultus  of  the  Virgin,  are  the  developments  of 
the  primitive  ideas  on  those  subjects.  Does  he  mean  to 
say  that  they  are  simple  explanations  of  those  ideas,  and 
that  if  an  intellectual  primitive  Christian  had  explained 
to  a  simple  one  the  Church’s  then  idea  of  the  authority  of 
the  Bishop  of  Rome,  and  had  said,  ‘  The  Bishop  of  Rome 
is  the  absolute  Monarch  of  Christendom,  and  has  the  power 
himself  of  imposing  articles  of  faith,’  that  the  simple  one 
would  have  replied  that  that  was  what  he  believed,  and 
that  the  explainer  only  expressed  his  belief  accurately  and 
scientifically  ?  If  Mr.  Newman  does  not  say  this,  and  by 
the  argument  of  his  book  he  does  not ;  if  the  Roman  de¬ 
velopment  is  a  vast,  solid,  substantial  change  upon  the 
primitive  rudiment,  then  those  Roman  doctrines  are  more 
than  explanations  of  the  primitive  ideas  on  these  subjects, 


204 


Theory  of  Development. 


and  therefore  Nicene  doctrine,  to  support  the  parallel, 
must  be  more  than  an  explanation  of  the  primitive  idea 
on  its  subject. 

So,  again,  with  respect  to  the  distinction  between  explicit 
and  implicit  knowledge  :  the  answer  is  the  same.  Here 
is  an  argument.  Here  is  a  parallelism.  We  must  go 
where  they  lead  us,  and  take  what  they  give  us.  Mr. 
Newman  may  allow  an  implicit  knowledge  of  the  truth 
of  our  Lord’s  proper  Divinity  in  the  Primitive  Church ; 
but  it  makes  no  difference  calling  it  by  a  particular  name, 
if  whatever  he  allows  can  only  be  what  his  argument 
allows,  and  just  as  much  and  no  more.  Indeed,  to  allow 
an  implicit  knowledge  is  not  to  allow  much ;  because 
implicit  knowledge  in  multitudes  of  cases  is  no  knoivledge 
at  all,  and  there  is  no  saying  what  a  man  does  know  and 
what  he  does  not,  in  the  sense  of  this  implicit  knowledge. 
A  man  may  be  in  time  present,  and  as  far  as  any  actual 
perception  and  all  that  we  mean  by  knowledge  goes, 
totally  ignorant  of  a  truth  ;  and  yet  when  the  truth 
afterwards  is  brought  to  him,  he  may  discover,  on  looking 
back  into  the  state  of  his  own  mind,  some  implicit 
unconscious  idea  of  it  before, — some  knowledge  which  did 
not  know,  and  some  perception  which  did  not  perceive. 
In  this  sense  the  world  has  from  its  commencement 
known  the  theory  of  gravitation,  the  theory  of  the  arch, 
the  principle  that  water  finds  its  own  level,  and  number¬ 
less  other  scientific  laws.  But  such  implicit  knowledge 
as  this  is  not  what  we  mean  by  knowledge.  Knowledge 
is  a  definite  perception  of  something  :  we  go  on  for  a  long 
time  not  knowing ;  then  there  is  a  positive  change  from 
this  not  knowing  to  knowing  :  we  know  a  thing  then, 
and  before  we  did  not.  No  mental  analysis  can  penetrate 
to  the  point  of  transition,  but  practically  a  point  of 
transition  there  is,  where  the  mind  passes  from  ignorance 


Theory  of  Development. 


205 


to  knowledge.  The  world  went  on  for  ages  with  the 
phenomena  of  water  and  its  movements  before  it ;  and 
men  knew  that  water  moved,  and  that  it  moved  in  the 
way  in  which  it  did ;  and  their  mental  eye  gazed  sleepily 
and  vacantly  on  it,  and  there  were  some  inert  tendencies, 
which  they  could  not  help  having,  from  the  fact  of  seeing 
such  phenomena,  to  the  knowledge  of  a  law  about  them. 
At  last  the  law  struck  some  one  in  whom  the  tendencies 
were  rather  less  inert  than  in  the  rest,  and  a  spring  in 
his  mind  was  touched ;  something  was  lit  up,  and  know¬ 
ledge  took  place :  he  caught  the  point ;  he  knew  the 
principle  that  water  finds  its  own  level.  Then  as  soon  as 
he  had  made  the  discovery,  the  rest  of  the  world  might 
say  that  they  had  had  implicit  knowledge  of  it  all  along. 
But  it  is  evident  that  the  knowledge  which  they  had 
was  not  what  we  mean  by  knowledge :  it  was  ignorance 
with  the  capacity  of  knowledge.  A  mere  implicit  know¬ 
ledge  then,  attributed  to  the  Primitive  Church,  of  subse¬ 
quent  truth  need  not  amount  to  much.  However,  if  we 
were  left  to  words  to  guide  us  in  the  present  case,  we 
could  not  extract  any  plain  result  from  them,  however 
their  obvious  meaning  might  seem  to  contain  it,  for  the 
arguer  frequently  says  under  such  circumstances  that  he 
means  more  than  you  mean  by  the  words.  The  mere 
words,  we  say, — seed  and  growth,  elementary  doctrines 
and  developed,  implicit  and  explicit  knowledge,  and  other 
modes  of  expressing  a  certain  relation  of  primitive  truth 
to  Nicene, — ought  not  simply  as  such,  however  naturally 
they  may  convey  a  particular  meaning  to  our  minds,  to 
have  that  meaning  imposed  upon  them,  if  the  writer  gives 
us  to  understand,  by  his  argument,  that  he  does  not  use 
them  in  that  meaning.  Nay,  and  if  a  writer’s  argument 
is  not  attended  to  in  interpreting  his  words,  it  will  very 
frequently  happen  that  much  injustice  will  be  done  him 


206 


Theory  of  Development. 


in  giving  meanings  to  liis  words  which  they  do  not 
according  to  the  argument  bear.  And  one  writer  will 
under  such  circumstances  sometimes  go  on  for  a  whole 
controversy,  totally  misunderstanding  another,  and  arguing 
upon  a  supposed  meaning  in  his  adversary’s  words,  which 
his  real  line  of  thought  does  not  give  them.  But,  as  we 
say,  we  are  not  left  to  words  here.  We  have  a  parallel 
to  guide  us  1°  the  meaning  of  them  :  we  have  an  illustra- 
tion  from  fact  of  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  implicit 
knowledge  in  the  present  case  is  ;  of  the  kind  of  relation 
which  doctrine  implicit  has  to  doctrine  explicit.  Nicene 
development  is  made  to  sanction  Boman  ;  Boman  develop¬ 
ment  appeals  to  Nicene  as  its  parallel.  Whatever  relation 
therefore  the  explicit  doctrine  has  to  the  implicit  in  the 
Boman  development,  that  same  relation  must  it  have  in 
the  Nicene.  Now  in  the  case  of  the  Boman  development 
it  cannot  possibly  be  asserted  that  the  ultimate  doctrines 
on  the  subject  it  is  concerned  with,  are  what  could  upon 
any  common  sense  and  natural  standard,  be  called  the 
same  doctrines  with  the  primitive  ones.  It  could  not 
possibly  be  asserted  that  the  Boman  doctrine  on  the 
intermediate  state  is  the  same  with  the  primitive  one ; 
that  the  Boman  view  of  the  sedes  Petri  is  the  same  with 
the  primitive  one ;  that  the  Boman  regard  to  St.  Mary  is 
the  same  with  the  primitive  one.  To  speak  of  the  primi¬ 
tive  Christian  holding  the  Boman  Purgatory,  Papacy,  and 
Cultus  of  the  Virgin,  would  be  a  solecism,  which  would 
have  immediately  to  be  explained  into  meaning  quite 
another  thing  than  the  words  naturally  suggest.  It  is 
obvious  that  in  these  instances  the  development  has  been 
of  a  kind  which  leaves  the  primitive  doctrine  a  mere 
element  and  seed,  compared  with  the  real  substantial 
later  one.  Who  would  deny  that  in  the  instance  of  the 
Papal  Infallibility, — to  fix  our  eye  upon  one, — the  growth 


Theory  of  Development. 


207 


had  not  been  so  enormous  that  the  ultimate  grown 

o 

doctrine  was,  as  far  as  anything  cognisable  goes,  literally 
one  thing,  and  the  asserted  primitive  element  of  it  another 
thing  ?  Indeed,  as  we  have  said,  Mr.  Newman  does  not 
call  these  the  same  doctrines,  for  the  very  object  of  his 
Essay  is  to  dispense  with  the  necessity  of  this  identity, 
and  give  a  rationale  for  change.  Thus  on  the  Eoman 
side  of  the  parallel,  the  implicit  doctrine  has  the  relation 
to  the  developed  of  no  more  than  a  seed  or  element. 
Then  on  the  Nicene  side  it  must  be  the  same.  The 
Nicene  doctrine  of  the  proper  Divinity  of  our  Lord  must 
be  the  development  of  an  early  doctrine  as  to  our  Lord’s 
nature,  as  truly  seminal  and  elementary  as  the  early 
asserted  anticipation  of  Eornan  doctrine  is.  And  if  it  be 
argued  that  the  Nicene  growth  was  only  the  first  sample 
and  beginning  of  a  course,  and  need  not  be  equal  in 
amount  to,  in  order  to  sanction,  later  growth,  the  same 
thing  has  still  to  be  repeated ;  if  it  sanction  the  later,  it 
must  be  real  growth  :  now  the  Nicene  doctrine  as  to  our 
Lord  is  no  more  than  that  He  was  very  God  ;  the  primi¬ 
tive  doctrine  then  must  have  been  less.  The  conclusion 
still  is  that  as  an  anterior  doctrine  preceded  the  Eoman 
one  of  the  Eapal  Infallibility,  which  was  substantially  a 
different  one  from  that  of  the  Papal  Infallibility,  so  an 
anterior  doctrine  preceded  the  Nicene  one  of  the  proper 
Divinity  of  our  Lord,  which  was  not  the  doctrine  of  His 
proper  Divinity. 

Such  is  the  result  of  an  argumentative  parallel,  though 
far  be  it  from  us  to  press  it  in  any  other  than  this  con¬ 
nection,  or  to  impose  the  result  if  the  parallel  is  not 
imposed.  But  if  Mr.  Newman  has  the  advantage  of  the 
parallel,  he  must  take  the  disadvantage  of  it.  He  has, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  option  of  allowing  the  Nicene 
development  to  be  of  a  different  sort  from  the  Eoman ; 


208 


Theory  of  Development. 


and  if  he  takes  that,  he  escapes  this  result  with  respect 
to  Nicene  doctrine,  but  has  no  benefit  of  parallel  with 
respect  to  Roman.  He  has,  on  the  other,  the  option  of 
saying  that  they  are  the  same  sort  of  development  and  of 
asserting  the  parallel ;  and  if  he  takes  that,  he  has  the 
benefit  of  it  with  respect  to  Roman  doctrine,  and  the 
disadvantage  of  it  with  respect  to  Mcene.  We  are  unable 
to  see  any  middle  ground  between  these  two. 

It  does,  then,  as  we  have  said,  appear  to  us  to  be  a 
necessary  result  from  this  line  of  argument,  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  proper  Divinity  of  our  Lord  was  not  a 
doctrine  of  inspiration.  If  it  was  not  the  received  doctrine 
of  the  Primitive  Church,  the  first  inspired  teachers  of  that 
Church  could  not  have  communicated  it  to  her.  For  to 
say  that  it  was  communicated  and  not  at  first  understood 
by  the  Church,  or  anything  of  that  nature,  would  be  so 
much  mere  hypothesis.  We  can  only  know  of  its  original 
communication  by  the  fact  of  its  early  reception.  More¬ 
over,  if  it  was  not  communicated,  we  have  no  ground  for 
saying  that  the  Apostles  themselves  knew  it,  and  were 
inspired  as  to  that  truth.  For  vain  would  be  the  dis¬ 
tinction,  if  attempted  to  be  urged,  between  what  inspired 
men  might  know  from  God  and  what  they  communicated 
to  men.  We  have  no  presumption  for  saying  that  they 
knew  from  God  any  other  doctrines  than  what  they  were 
commissioned  to  communicate,  or  that  inspiration  had 
esoteric  dogmas  for  the  individuals  inspired  to  keep  to 
themselves.  It  follows  that,  on  this  theory,  we  have  no 
reason  for  saying  that  the  Apostles  themselves  were 
believers  in,  i.e.  knew  this  doctrine,  or  therefore  that,  as 
far  as  any  conscious  meaning  in  the  minds  of  the  writers 
is  concerned,  the  New  Testament,  from  beginning  to  end, 
contains  it.  A  great  number  of  texts,  which  Allans  and 
Socinians  have  taken  advantage  of,  receive  as  a  conse- 


Theory  of  Development.  209 

quence  a  very  different  interpretation  from  that  which  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  give  them.  The  New  Testament 
becomes  an  ante-Nicene  document,  containing  those  errors 
and  shortcomings  which  are  charged  upon  the  ante- 
Nicene  Fathers,  and  containing  them  in  the  same  sense  ; 
not  simply  in  the  sense,  that  is,  that  the  words  of  the 
writers  are  to  he  explained  to  mean  what  universal  tradi¬ 
tion  witnesses  that  they  did,  as  a  fact,  mean,  but  in  the 
sense  that  the  actual  doctrinal  meaning  of  the  writers  was 
a  rudimental  and  defective  one, — that  what  St.  Paul,  St. 
John,  St.  Peter  actually  meant  in  what  they  wrote  was 
not  the  Nicene  truth  of  the  proper  Divinity  of  our  Lord, 
but  an  earlier  truth,  the  truth  of  that  day  as  to  our 
Lord’s  nature,  whatever  that  was;  an  elementary  truth 
indeed,  which  was  capable  of  being  expanded  in  the 
course  of  centuries  by  the  “  unwearied  thought  ”  of  the 
Church  and  her  theologians  into  that  truth,  but  which 
was  not  that  truth  itself,  any  more  than  the  acorn  is  the 
oak.  In  short,  if  a  doctrine  of  inspiration  means,  as 
everybody  supposes  it  to  mean,  a  doctrine  of  which  the 
Apostles  were  informed  by  inspiration,  and  being  informed 
of,  taught,  the  doctrine  of  our  Lord’s  Divinity  is,  upon 
the  theory  we  are  dealing  with,  not  a  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion  ;  and  a  whole  view  of  early  Christianity  and  apostolic 
teaching,  different  from  what  we  have  been  ever  taught, 
goes  along  with  that  fact. 

And  now  it  is  time  that  this  article  should  draw  to  an 
end ;  a  prospect  which  affords  as  much  satisfaction  to 
ourselves  as  it  will  to  our  readers.  We  have  trespassed 
almost  unprecedentedly  upon  established  limits  ;  and  the 
task  of  the  argue r,  hard,  cold,  and  hostile,  and  though 
lengthy  enough  to  be  tedious,  short  enough  to  oppress 
him  with  the  continual  memento  of  points  wholly  omitted, 
and  thought  just  begun  and  left  off,  has  not  been  relieved 

0 


2 1  o  Theory  of  Development. 

by  the  consideration  of  that  name  which  the  Essay  he 
has  been  examining  bears,  and  which  he  has  had  so 
often  to  repeat,  in  a  very  different  tone  and  connection  from 
that  in  which  the  pages  of  this  Review  have  mentioned 
it  in  former  times. 

What  we  have  to  say  now  is  little  more  than  what  the 
reader  will  gather  for  himself,  if  he  has  gone  along  with 
ns.  We  have  to  say,  that  having  followed  Mr.  Newman’s 
argument  through  the  three  stages  through  which  it  has 
taken  us,  we  do  not  feel  ourselves  convinced  by  it.  His 
tests  of  a  true  and  false  development  did  not  convince  us 
in  the  first  place  ;  his  argument  for  the  Papal  Infallibility, 
the  only  logical  hypothesis  which  could  then  settle  that 
question  of  development  in  his  favour,  did  not  convince 
us  in  the  second  place  ;  his  argument  of  reductio  ad 
absurdum,  which  imposes  that  development  upon  us  as  a 
thing  to  which  we  have  already  committed  ourselves  in 
the  acceptance  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
and  thrusts  upon  us  the  alternative  between  Rome  and 
infidelity,  does  not  convince  us  in  the  third  place. 

Some  obvious  reflections,  first  upon  the  way  in  which 
this  theory  of  development  affects  the  Roman  controversy 
in  general,  and  then  upon  this  theory  of  development 
itself  in  particular,  shall  follow  in  conclusion. 

With  respect,  then,  to  this  whole  theory  of  develop¬ 
ment,  we  have  to  observe  that  its  propounder  introduces 
it  into  the  theological  arena  with  this  assertion  :  “  This  is 
an  hypothesis  to  account  for  a  difficulty.”1  There  is,  then, 
a  difficulty,  acknowledged  in  the  Roman  development  of 
Christianity ;  and  an  hypothesis  is  said  to  be  wanted  to 
account  for  it.  The  phenomenon  does  not  explain  itself ; 
it  has  to  be  explained  upon  an  hypothesis.  We  recom¬ 
mend  this  observation,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the 

1  Page  27. 


Theory  of  Development. 


2  I  I 


attention  of  some  who  appear  to  think  that  they  decide 
the  question  against  the  English  Church,  if  they  can 
appeal  to  obvious  difficulties  on  her  side.  It  seems  that 
there  are  difficulties  on  both  sides ;  and  that  if  one  side 
has  to  explain,  the  other  has  to  explain  too.  Chris¬ 
tianity  has  now  run  through  eighteen  centuries,  says 
Mr.  Newman,  and  has  a  history.  “  Christianity,’’  there¬ 
fore,  “may  now  legitimately  be  made  the  subject-matter  of 
theories.”  “It  has  been  long  enough  in  the  world  to 
justify  us  in  dealing  with  it”1  in  this  way.  Moreover, 
that  history  has  brought  along  with  it  difficulties ;  for 
them  an  hypothesis  is  absolutely  demanded.  The  writer 
of  this  Essay,  then,  does  not  give  much  encouragement  to 
what  may  be  called  the  simple  method  of  deciding  the 
question  between  the  Roman  and  English  Churches. 
He  gives  the  Roman  Church  a  “  theory,”  “  an  hypothesis,” 
which  accounts  for  “her  difficulties;’5  but  he  does  not 
profess  to  say  that  she  has  a  position  free  from  them. 
We  might  suggest  a  comparison  between  the  Roman 
Church  with  this  ground,  and  St.  Augustine’s  Church 
with  its  :  the  latter  had  a  good  deal  more  simple  a  posi¬ 
tion,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  greater  simplicity  of  the 
argument ;  which  was,  if  we  mistake  not,  a  simple  appeal 
to  people’s  eyes.  The  phenomenon  of  St.  Augustine’s 
Catholic  Church  explained  itself ;  but  the  phenomenon 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  it  seems,  does  not 
explain  itself,  but  requires  an  hypothesis.  But  we  must 
proceed. 

Having  observed,  then,  that  the  thing  before  us  is  an 
hypothesis,  our  next  observation  is  that  it  is  an  additional 
and  a  directly  counter  hypothesis  to  another,  which  has 
always  had,  and  has  now,  the  general,  public,  and  autho¬ 
ritative  acknowledgment  of  the  Roman  Church.  The 

1  Page  1. 


2  12 


Theory  of  Development. 


public  and  authoritative  hypothesis  of  the  Eoman  Church 
is  that  the  whole  of  the  Christian  faith  was  revealed 
entire  from  the  first  :  Mr.  Newman’s  hypothesis  is  that 
the  whole  of  the  Christian  faith  has  been  a  development 
from  the  first.  It  is  wholly  needless  for  us  to  cite  the 
names  of  all  the  Eoman  divines  who  have,  without 
hesitation  or  qualification,  maintained  this  as  the  regular 
hypothesis  of  their  Church  :  it  would  be,  with  hardly  an 
exception,  simply  transcribing  the  whole  index  from 
beginning  to  end.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  it  is  the  ground 
of  Bellarmine.  The  list  exhibits  at  the  end  some  dis¬ 
tinguished  names  of  the  present  day ;  and  the  present 
representatives  of  Eoman  theology  at  Eome,  and  in 
England,  appear  as  the  undoubting  and  dutiful  supporters 
of  it.  “We  believe,”  says  Dr.  Wiseman,  “that  no  new 
doctrine  can  be  introduced  into  the  Church,  but  that 
every  doctrine  which  we  hold  has  existed  and  been  taught 
in  it,  ever  since  the  time  of  the  Apostles.”  “  The 
Apostles,”  says  the  Jesuit  Perrone,  the  present  Professor 
of  theology  at  Eome,  “  having  been  instructed  by  Christ 
in  the  truths  of  the  faith,  delivered  these  same  truths  to 
successors  chosen  by  them,  that  they  in  like  manner 
might  transmit  them  entire,  even  to  the  latest  posterity, 
such  as  they  had  received  them .”  I  admit  [progress],  he 
says,  i.e.  greater  elucidation  of  the  doctrine  already  received; 
I  deny  [progress]  by  the  introduction  of  new  dogmas.” 
“  The  doctrines  of  the  faith  are  so  many  truths  divinely 
revealed,  which  the  Church  received  from  Christ  to  be 
transmitted  to  posterity,  and  inviolably  preserved  from 
the  gnawing  tooth  of  innovation.”  “  The  Pontiffs  and 
Councils  never  obtrude  anything  of  their  own,  but  are 
witnesses  of  the  doctrine  which  Christ  taught  and  the 
Apostles  delivered.”  “  It  is  the  constant  rule  of  Catholics,” 
says  another  living  theologian  of  the  Eoman  Church,  that 


Theory  of  Development. 


213 


“  no  change  can  take  place  in  what  concerns  the  doctrines 
of  revealed  religion.”  With  respect  to  Purgatory,  says 
Dr.  Wiseman,  “  Nothing  can  be  more  simple  than  to 
establish  the  belief  of  the  universal  Church  on  this 
point.  The  only  difficulty  is  to  select  such  passages  as 
may  appear  the  clearest.  These  passages  contain  precisely 
the  same  doctrine  as  the  Catholic  Church  teaches.” 
With  reference  to  Indulgences,  the  same  writer  says, 
“  The  Church  in  the  earliest  time  ”  claimed  and  exercised 
this  power.  With  reference  to  the  Invocation  of  Saints, 
he  says,  “  I  can  have  only  one  fear  in  laying  before  you 
passages  on  this  subject.  It  is  that  in  the  authorities 
from  the  Fathers,  their  expressions  are  so  much  stronger 
than  those  used  by  Catholics  at  the  present  day,  that 
there  is  a  danger  (if  I  may  so  speak)  of  proving  too 
much  ;  they  go  beyond  us.”  In  a  word,  the  ground  of  the 
Roman  Church  hitherto  has  been,  that  all  the  Boman 
doctrines  were  actually  revealed  to  the  Apostles,  and 
really  in  the  Church  from  the  first,  though  some  were  not 
taught  publicly.  This  hypothesis  Mr.  Newman  denies. 
He  says  of  the  “  hypothesis  put  forward  by  divines  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  called  the  Disciplina  Arcani,  It  is 
maintained  that  doctrines  which  are  associated  with 
the  later  ages  of  the  Church  were  really  in  the  Church 
from  the  first,  but  not  publicly  taught,”1  “  This  is  no  key 
to  the  whole  difficulty,” 2  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  a  true 
hypothesis ;  and  he  puts  forward  the  hypothesis  of 
development  expressly  to  supply  its  place.  So  then  here 
are  two  directly  conflicting  hypotheses  put  forward  in 
the  Boman  Church  as  the  account  of  her  faith. 

Now,  upon  this  state  of  the  case,  one  reflection,  which 
necessarily  arises,  is  that  with  regard  to  general  ante¬ 
cedent  claim  upon  attention  and  respect,  both  hypotheses 
1  Page  25.  2  Page  26. 


Theory  of  Development. 


214 


are  considerably  weakened  by  this  opposition.  So  long  as 
one  account  of  her  creed  is  put  forward  by  a  whole 
Church,  that  account  comes  with  a  certain  imposing 
introduction  to  us  ;  but  if  another  account  is  put  forward 
which  directly  conflicts  with  the  old  one,  it  is  natural  for 
a  person  to  say,  ‘  You  come  to  persuade  me,  and  yet  you 
are  fighting  among  yourselves  as  to  the  very  foundation 
upon  which  your  own  whole  belief  rests.  The  early 
Church  had  one  account,  but  you  have  two  contrary  ones. 
You  must  really  make  up  your  own  mind  before  you 
come  to  persuade  me.  Choose  which  of  the  two  you 
please,  but  if  they  oppose  each  other,  do  let  me  have  one 
of  them,  and  not  both  together.  Otherwise  you  simply 
puzzle  me/  The  Roman  Church,  we  say,  if  she  admits 
two  contrary  hypotheses,  ceases  ipso  facto  to  argue  at  all. 
Schools  and  individuals  in  her  argue,  but  the  Church  does 
not.  As  a  Church,  she  abandons  the  field  of  controversy 
because  she  contradicts  herself.  For,  be  it  remembered, 
this  is  not  an  affair  of  simple  phenomena,  the  truth  of 
which  is  visible  to  the  eye,  and  does  not  depend  at  all  on 
the  hypothesis  which  explains  them,  such  as  the  fact  that 
matter  falls  to  the  ground,  the  truth  of  which  does  not  at 
all  depend  on  the  hypothesis  of  gravitation ;  but  it  is  a 
case  where  the  hypothesis  is  appealed  to  for  the  truth  of 
the  fact  itself.  We  want  to  know  why  we  are  to  believe 
a  doctrine,  say  Purgatory  or  any  other.  Bellarmine 
gives  one  reason,  and  Mr.  Newman  a  totally  contrary  one. 
Nor  would  the  remark  that  it  was  the  Church’s  teaching 
all  the  same  in  either  case  be  to  the  purpose,  for  the 
reason  of  the  Church’s  teaching  is  the  argumentative 
ground  on  which  we  believe  the  Church’s  teaching ;  and 
this  reason  is  a  contrary  one  as  Bellarmine  and  as  Mr. 
Newman  give  it. 

We  must  add,  that  Mr.  Newman’s  hypothesis  is 


Theory  of  Development. 


215 


especially  affected  by  this  state  of  the  case.  We  have 
naturally  and  reasonably  so  little  confidence  in  our  own 
private  judgment,  that  when  an  individual  writer  comes 
before  us  with  the  information  that  he  has  an  hypo¬ 
thesis  for,  a  rationale  to  give  of,  the  whole  of  Christian 
doctrine,  we  first  ask  him  whom  he  represents,  and  what 
testimonials  he  can  give  primd  facie  recommendatory  of 
it.  And  when  he  says  that  it  is  a  new  one,  that  it  is  only 
his  own,  or  that  of  a  particular  circle  of  thinkers,  and 
that  it  is  not  only  not  borne  out  by,  but  opposed  to,  and 
intended  to  supplant  the  whole  account  of  the  Christian 
faith  maintained  by  the  Universal  Church  from  the  first, 
it  is  then  natural  to  say  that  we  should  not  trust  our  own 
reason  enough  to  accept  such  an  hypothesis,  even  sup¬ 
posing  it  to  exhibit,  upon  examination,  great  argumenta¬ 
tive  force.  Nor  are  we  surprised  at  Mr.  Newman’s 
Eoman  Catholic  opponent  putting  the  question  to  him 
rather  sharply. 

“  In  regard  to  all  this,  we  simply  ask,  Does  the  Church  her¬ 
self  take  this  view  %  Does  she  teach  that  she  at  first  received 
no  formal  revelation, — that  the  revelation  was  given  as 
‘  unleavened  dough,’  to  be  leavened,  kneaded,  made  up  into 
loaves  of  convenient  size,  baked,  and  prepared  for  use  by  her, 
after  her  mission  began,  and  she  had  commenced  the  work  of 
evangelising  the  nations  %  Does  she  admit  her  original  creed 
was  incomplete,  that  it  has  increased  and  expanded,  that 
there  have  been  variation  and  progress  in  her  understanding 
of  the  revelation  she  originally  received,  and  that  she  now 
understands  it  better,  and  can  more  readily  define  what  it  is, 
than  she  could  at  first  'l  Most  assuredly  not.  She  asserts 
that  there  has  been  no  progress,  no  increase,  no  variation  of 
faith  ;  that  what  she  believes  and  teaches  now  is  precisely 
what  she  has  always  and  everywhere  believed  and  taught 
from  the  first.  She  denies  that  she  has  ever  added  a  new 
article  to  the  primitive  creed ;  and  affirms,  as  Mr.  Newman 
himself  proves  in  his  account  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon 


2  1 6  Theory  of  Development. 

(p.  145),  that  the  new  definition  is  not  a  new  development,  a 
"better  understanding  of  the  faith,  but  simply  a  new  definition, 
against  the  ‘  novel  expressions  ’  invented  by  the  enemies  of 
religion  of  what,  on  the  point  defined,  had  always  and  every¬ 
where  been  her  precise  faith.  In  this  she  is  right,  or  she  is 
wrong.  If  right,  you  must  abandon  your  theory  of  develop¬ 
ments  ;  if  wrong,  she  is  a  false  witness  for  G-od,  and  your 
theory  of  developments  cannot  make  her  worthy  of  confidence. 
If  you  believe  her,  you  cannot  assert  developments  in  your 
sense  of  the  term ;  if  you  do  not  believe  her,  you  are  no 
Catholic.” — Brownson’s  Quarterly  Review,  p.  352. 

We  say  if  any  person  maintained  that  he  did  not  feel  a 
logical  call  even  to  give  a  consideration,  in  the  first 
instance,  to  an  hypothesis  coming  before  him  as  this  does, 
we  should  not  be  prepared,  for  our  part,  to  contradict  such 
a  view.  If  the  bare  possibility  of  turning  out  true  gave 
an  hypothesis  a  claim  upon  our  consideration,  we  should 
be  living  every  hour  of  our  lives  in  the  greatest  possible 
neglect  of  our  duties  as  rational  beings ;  inasmuch  as 
many  a  theory  comes  before  us  daily,  of  which  we  cannot 
say  that  it  is  self-evidently  false,  and  which  we  yet  do 
not  feel  called  upon  to  consider ;  and  these  theories  too 
upon  important  subjects.  To  draw  the  line  between 
hypotheses  which  have  a  claim  upon  our  consideration 
and  those  which  have  not,  appears  to  be  an  important 
part  of  practical  logic,  and  one  perhaps  which,  however 
intimately  depending  upon  each  man’s  common  sense, 
might  be  brought,  to  a  certain  extent,  under  rule,  as 
ordinary  logic  is. 

To  proceed.  There  being  then  now  two  contradictory 
hypotheses  put  forward  by  the  Boman  Church,  or  schools 
in  her,  each  of  which  is  weakened, — and  especially  the 
latter,  as  far  as  the  a  priori  claim  upon  our  attention  goes, 
— by  this  contradiction  ;  what  we  thirdly  observe  is,  that 
on  an  actual  examination  and  comparison  of  the  two 


Theory  of  Development 


2 1 7 


hypotheses,  we  do  not  see  that  the  new  one  is  more  free 
from  difficulties  than  the  old  one.  Its  difficulties  indeed 
have  another  character,  and  lie  in  another  quarter ;  but 
they  are  as  real.  The  old  one  lies  under  a  great  disad¬ 
vantage  with  respect  to  the  department  of  later  doctrine, 

for  it  has  to  assert  of  such  doctrine  that  it  was  actually 

«/ 

revealed  to  the  Apostles,  and  communicated  by  them  to 
the  Church, — an  assertion  which  is  contradicted  by  all 
history.  The  new  one,  on  the  other  hand,  is  able  to  take 
a  natural  view,  as  far  as  history  is  concerned,  of  the  origin 
of  later  doctrine,  and  fairly  to  face  and  acknowledge  the 
fact  of  its  lateness ;  but  it  compensates  for  this  advantage 
when  it  comes  to  the  department  of  earlier;  and  the 
necessity  of  proving  growth  becomes  as  onerous  to  it  as 
the  necessity  of  proving  antiquity  was  to  the  old  one.  It 
is  now  its  turn  to  falsify  history,  to  be  unreal  and  arti¬ 
ficial,  to  make  much  out  of  nothing.  It  has  to  convert 
explanation  into  growth,  new  expression  into  new  sub¬ 
stance  ;  to  raise  the  definition  of  a  truth, — because  it  moulds 
it  into  more  verbal  accuracy, — into  truth’s  rising  manhood 
compared  with  former  infancy,  into  the  plant  compared 
with  the  seed  ;  it  is  to  be  obviously  hollow  and  bombastic. 
RTor  is  this  all  which  the  new  hypothesis  has  to  do,  for 
it  has  to  explain  away  the  loud,  clear,  unanimous  assertion 
of  the  whole  Nicene  Church  that  its  doctrine  was  not  a 
development.  It  has  not  to  see  a  whole  body  of  evidence 
on  this  subject,  which  stares  it  in  the  face ;  or  to  put 
ingenious  aspects  upon  such  evidence  when  it  does  come 
across  it ;  and  make  out  that  it  is  evidence  for  the  very 
contrary  of  what  it  professes  to  be  evidence  for.  Hor  is 
this  all,  for  arriving  at  last  at  the  era  of  Revelation  it 
has  to  face  the  awkward  result  of  its  own  argument,  that 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity  were  not  in 
existence  then;  and  a  whole  Socinian  view  of  early 


2i8  Theory  of  Development. 

Christian  theology  meets  it.  Such  are  the  two  hypotheses  ; 
and  if  the  old  has  difficulties  on  the  later  ground,  the  new 
one  has  no  less  on  the  earlier. 

To  this  new  hypothesis,  then,  a  member  of  the  English 
Church  has  the  same  answer  to  make  that  he  had  to  the 
old  one.  He  has  only  to  take  his  stand  on  the  old  ground. 
As  a  matter  of  evidence,  he  maintains  that  there  is  a 
distinction  between  these  two  classes  of  doctrines,  between 
Mcene  doctrines  and  Eoman,  between  primitive  and 
later ;  and  whereas  here  are  two  hypotheses,  which,  in 
different  ways, — one  by  making  the  whole  an  original 
revelation,  another  by  making  the  whole  a  development, 
— attempt  absolutely  to  identify  the  two,  he  says  that, 
looking  to  facts  and  history,  he  cannot  do  so.  He  observes 
that  each  of  these  hypotheses  falsifies  fact  according  as 
they  maintain  their  respective  modes  of  identifying  these 
two  classes  of  doctrines  ;  according  as  one  makes  Eoman 
doctrine  originally  revealed,  and  the  other  Nicene  doctrine 
subsequently  developed.  And  he  accordingly  adheres  to 
his  ground  which  distinguishes  between  them,  and,  avoiding 
the  unnatural,  takes  the  natural  part  of  both  hypotheses. 
Upon  this  distinction  of  evidence,  again,  it  necessarily 
follows  that  he  makes  a  distinction  in  his  belief  as  to  the 
two  respectively,  and  accepts  the  one  class  of  doctrines  as 
articles  of  faith,  and  not  the  other.  And  whereas  each 
of  these  hypotheses  presses  the  charge  of  illogicalness 
upon  him  for  making  this  distinction  in  his  belief,  calling 
upon  him  to  accept  all  or  none,  and  denying  a  standing- 
ground  between  Eorne  and  infidelity,  he  naturally  replies 
that,  supposing  he  took  that  view  of  evidence  which  they 
take,  it  would  be  very  illogical  for  him  not  to  accept  all ; 
but  that  making  a  distinction  in  evidence,  it  would  be 
very  illogical  for  him  not  to  make  a  distinction  in  belief. 
Again,  if  he  is  taken  off  the  ground  of  evidence  into  the 


Theory  of  Development.  219 

only  other  one,  the  a  'priori  ground,  he  takes  his  stand 
upon  the  argument  of  analogy  ;  and  whereas  his  opponents 
argue  a  priori  that  there  must  he  an  Infallible  Authority 
always  at  hand  in  the  Church,  and  therefore  that  there  is 
one,  he  does  not  allow  the  presumption,  and  therefore 
does  not  allow  the  fact  built  upon  it.  And  here  again  he 
considers  he  is  logical,  for  though  if  he  allowed  the 
necessity  of  a  Standing  Infallible  Authority,  it  would  be 
illogical  for  him  to  deny  the  fact ;  not  allowing  that  neces¬ 
sity,  it  is  not  illogical  for  him  to  deny  it.  But  the  denial 
of  the  a  priori  ground  leaves  him  perfectly  at  liberty 
with  respect  to  other  grounds.  And,  therefore,  if  an 
Authority  presents  itself  to  him  claiming  on  other  grounds 
to  he  an  Infallible  Authority,  he  may  on  consideration  of 
such  grounds  accept  it  as  such,  and  for  the  purpose  for 
which  there  are  grounds  for  thinking  it  infallible.  And 
such  an  authority  he  admits  in  the  Universal  Church, 
accepting  all  those  definitions  of  the  faith  which  it  has 
given,  or  may  hereafter  give.  But  this  does  not  com¬ 
mit  him  to  the  decrees  of  the  Roman  Church,  because  he 
believes,  upon  evidence,  the  Roman  Church  not  to  be  the 
Universal  Church. 

But  after  making  the  comparison  between  Mr.  Newman’s 
hypothesis  and  the  old  one,  and  deciding  that  the  former 
has  equal  difficulties  with  the  latter ;  the  fourth  and  last 
observation  we  shall  make  is  one  which  we  should  not 
like  to  omit  on  taking  leave  of  the  present  subject. 

For  we  must  confess  that,  after  the  most  attentive  con¬ 
sideration  which  we  have  been  able  to  devote  to  this 
Essay,  viewing  it  as  a  whole,  we  are  unable  to  discover 
that  Mr.  Newman  has  any  regular  hypothesis  at  all.  We 
have  supposed  him  indeed  to  have  one,  because  he  tells 
us  he  has  one,  and  has  given  it  a  name  and  called  it  a 
Theory  of  Development.  If  a  person  comes  forward  with 


220 


Theory  of  Development. 


a  theory,  it  is  right  to  presume  that  he  will  fairly  go  upon 
it,  and  fairly  make  it  his  theory,  by  argumentative  con¬ 
sistency,  till  we  find  the  contrary.  And  therefore  we 
suppose  beforehand  Mr.  Newman  will  do  so.  But  on 
coming  to  inspect  his  own  argumentative  relations  to  his 
own  theory,  we  discover  a  looseness  and  inconsistency 
which  seems  to  break  up  his  theory  as  a  theory  altogether. 

Mr.  Newman’s  professed  theory  is  indeed  a  simple  one. 
All  grows  out  of  one  seed.  Christianity  came  into  the 
world  an  elementary  idea  ;  and  from  that  idea  all  that  it 
subsequently  gained  of  belief  and  organisation  grew.  So 
— first  on  the  point  of  belief — here  is  a  theory  which 
commits  the  holder  of  it  to  a  certain  elementary  exordium 
of  Christian  belief.  Now,  ask  a  Socinian  what  was  the 
exordium  out  of  which  Nicene  belief  grew,  and  he  will 
give  you  an  exordium  and  a  very  simple  one ;  he  will  say 
that  Christians  began  with  thinking  our  Lord  a  mere 
man,  and  that  the  idea  of  His  nature  then  grew,  till  at 
the  Nicene  era  it  arrived  at  the  idea  of  Godhead.  This  is 
an  intelligible  exordium  of  Christian  doctrine,  supposing 
Christian  doctrine  is  really  a  growth.  But  going  into  the 
substance  actual  of  Mr.  Newman’s  theory,  we  cannot 
discover  what  exordium  it  makes,  or  if  it  makes  any 
exordium  at  all,  which  can  be  said  legitimately  to  answer 
to  the  assertion  of  growth.  If  the  theory  of  development 
enlarges  forward,  it  must  diminish  backward ;  if  you  say 
that  such  a  doctrine  is  a  growth,  then  you  imply  that  it 
was  a  seed, — you  must  make  it  less  as  you  trace  it  to  its 
beginning,  till  you  come  to  some  ultimate  atom  which  it 
originally  was.  Such  should,  according  to  the  theory,  be 
Mr.  Newman’s  original  “  Christian  idea,”  when  he  says 
“  Christianity  came  into  the  world  an  idea,”  and  develops 
all  doctrine  and  institution  whatever  out  of  that  idea. 
We  naturally  say,  Here  must  be  the  original  atom  of 


Theory  of  Development. 


221 


Christianity;  and  what  is  it?  Your  theory  demands  a 
real  Iona  fide  exordium :  show  it.  But  we  make  the 
demand  in  vain ;  we  try  in  vain  to  find  out  what  this 
original  idea  is ;  it  nowhere  appears  ;  we  can  make  out 
nothing  of  it.  As  soon  as  ever  Mr.  Newman’s  theory 
approaches  its  elementary  region,  it  disappears,  and  we 
are  left  without  any  theory  at  all  to  make  out  the  original 
idea  of  Christianity,  to  he  as  much  or  as  little  as  we  like. 
We  may  make  it  out  to  he  full  Mcene  doctrine  if  we  like  ; 
he  does  not  prevent  us :  he  scrupulously  abstains  from 
preventing  us,  and  says  he  has  only  meant  to  say  that 
there  is  not  evidence  for  that  doctrine  having  existed  then, 
but  that  we  may  believe  it  did  if  we  like.  In  fact,  this 
exordium,  on  the  elementary  nature  of  which  we  have,  in 
accordance  with  the  theory,  counted  all  along,  turns  out 
to  be  a  regular  dogmatic  creation  when  we  approach  it. 
After  all  the  assertion  of  the  Mcene  “  Homoousion  ”  being 
a  growth,  he  actually  allows  us  to  assume  “  that  there  is 
a  consensus  in  the  ante-Mcene  Church  for  the  doctrines 
of  our  Lord’s  Consubstantiality  and  Co- eternity  with  the 
Almighty  Father.”  He  says,  “  There  is  not  an  article  in 
the  Athanasian  Creed  concerning  the  Incarnation  which 
is  not  anticipated  in  the  controversy  with  the  Gnostics ; 
there  is  no  question  which  the  Apollinarian  or  the 
Nestorian  heresy  raised  which  may  not  he  decided  in  the 
words  of  Irenseus  and  Tertullian.” 1  Why,  then,  he  has 
taken  us  as  far  back  as  he  can  in  the  Christian  history, 
and  instead  of  an  elementary  idea  we  have  a  full  dogmatic 
Mcene  belief.  Nor  is  the  expedient  by  which  he  tries  to 
make  this  dogmatic  belief  a  seminal  one  again,  and  restore 
consistency  to  his  theory  after  he  has  destroyed  it,  a  very 
fortunate  one.  What  does  he  say  ? — “  Let  us  allow  that 
the  whole  circle  of  doctrines  of  which  our  Lord  is  the 

1  Page  10. 


222 


Theory  of  Development. 


subject  was  consistently  and  uniformly  confessed  by  the 
Primitive  Church,  though  not  formally  ratified  by  council. 
But  it  surely  is  otherwise  with  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.”  But  what  is  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  but  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  are 
each  God,  and  all  Three  but  one  God  ?  So,  on  Mr.  New¬ 
man’s  view,  the  Godhead  of  the  Father  and  the  Godhead 
of  the  Son  being  acknowledged  as  the  doctrine  of  the 
early  Church,  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  not  acknow¬ 
ledged,  we  have  for  the  belief  of  the  early  Church,  Dualism. 
But  surely  Mr.  Newman  will  not  assert  the  absurdity  that 
the  creed  of  the  Church  was  ever  a  Dualistic  one.  If  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  defective  in  such  circumstances, 
it  can  only  be  by  the  non-acknowledgment  of  the  Divinity 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  by  His  oneness  with  the  Con- 
substantial  Father  and  Son  not  being  acknowledged :  in 
either  case  there  is  Dualism.  Or  if  we  have  not  Dualism, 
what  is  it  that  we  have  ?  And  this  is  the  elementary 
idea  of  Christianity  which  the  theory  comes  to  after  all ; 
— a  full  dogmatic  belief  as  regards  one  doctrine,  arbitrarily 
made  to  stop  short  of  another,  which  it  is  quite  absurd  to 
suppose  it  should  stop  short  of,  if  it  existed  at  all.  We 
naturally  say,  Let  us  have  one  thing  or  another  :  a  seminal 
origin  fairly  agrees  with  your  theory ;  a  full  dogmatic 
origin  fairly  disagrees  with  it.  But  here  is  neither  a 
genuine  dogmatic  nor  genuine  seminal  origin  for  Christi¬ 
anity,  but  an  artificial,  arbitrary,  grotesque,  unmeaning 
medium  between  the  two.  Such  is  the  course  which  the 
theory  takes  when  it  has  to  make  itself  actual,  and  embody 
itself  in  fact. 

So  then  we  ask  Mr.  Newman  what  is  his  theory  ? 
For  wre  confess  we  are  unable  to  make  it  out.  He  calls 
upon  the  member  of  the  English  Church  for  his  theory  : 
What  is  his  own  ?  As  far  as  he  has  explained  it  hitherto, 


Theory  of  Development. 


223 


it  is  a  theory  of  growth  without  a  seed, — development 

without  an  exordium.  We  come  to  what  is  his  original 

idea  of  Christianity,  and  expect  to  find  a  philosophical 

elementarily  in  it ;  but  we  find  nothing  of  the  kind.  The 

truth  is,  the  author  is  afraid  of  his  own  theory  as  soon  as 

«/ 

ever  it  comes  to  its  trying  part ;  he  finds  it — it  is  not  a 
grave  word,  but  we  use  it  gravely — beginning  to  pinch 
him,  and  he  drops  it.  He  then  begins,  as  we  said  before, 
arbitrarily  to  balance,  and  qualify,  and  do  what  he  has 
allowed  none  of  his  opponents  to  do  in  his  whole  Essay 
— explain.  His  theory  goes  on  with  an  easy  swing 
enough  over  its  easy  ground  ;  but  it  comes  to  its  difficult 
ground,  and  it  begins  to  halt.  How  is  its  turn  to  be 
lame,  feeble,  confused,  and  unnatural ;  to  be  as  impotent 
as  it  is  arbitrary,  and  expect  to  be  believed  for  no  kind  of 
reason.  The  Theory  of  Development  gets  over  the  ground 
of  later  doctrines  with  a  bold  assurance ;  but  when  it 
comes  to  fundamental  ones,  it  stops  and  wavers.  It  dares 
not  face  its  own  result.  But  surely  it  does  not  deserve 
the  name  of  a  theory  if  it  does  this.  Any  theory  can  get 
over  its  easy  ground  well :  it  is  the  difficult  ground  which 
tries  it.  Theories  geological,  chemical,  astronomical,  all 
go  on  successfully  enough  over  their  easy  ground,  and 
nobody  thinks  anything  of  them  for  doing  it. 

Again,  with  respect  to  the  ecclesiastical  question.  We 
must  confess  ourselves  unable  to  see  how  Mr.  Newman 
can  get  a  Church  at  all,  much  less  a  Papal  Church,  with 
its  local  centre  and  monarchy,  out  of  an  “  idea.”  To 
quote  his  American  opponent : — 

“  Mr.  Newman  evidently  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that 
Christianity  can  be  abstracted  from  the  Church,  and  considered 
apart  from  the  institution  which  concretes  it,  as  if  the  Church 
were  accidental  and  not  essential  in  our  holy  religion. 
‘  Christianity/  he  says,  ‘  though  spoken  of  in  prophecy  as  a 


224 


Theory  of  Development. 


kingdom,  came  into  the  world  as  an  idea  rather  than  an  insti¬ 
tution,  and  has  had  to  wrap  itself  in  clothing,  and  fit  itself 
with  armour  of  its  own  providing,  and  form  the  instruments 
and  methods  of  its  own  prosperity  and  warfare/  ...  Its 
Divine  Author,  then,  sent  Christianity  into  the  world  a  naked 
and  unarmed  idea.  By  its  action  on  us,  and  ours  on  it,  it 
gradually  develops  itself  into  an  institution,  which,  feeble  at 
first,  as  time  and  events  roll  on,  strengthens  and  fortifies  itself, 
now  on  this  side  and  now  on  that ;  pushes  deep  its  roots  into 
the  heart  of  humanity,  sends  out  its  branches,  now  in  one 
direction  and  now  in  another,  till  at  length  it  grows  up  and 
expands  into  that  all-embracing  authority,  those  profound  and 
comprehensive  dogmas,  those  pure  and  sublime  precepts,  and 
that  rich  and  touching  ritual,  which  together  make  up  what 
we  to-day  call  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Apostolical  Church/’ 
— Brownson’s  Quarterly ,  pp.  354,  355. 

All  this  is  to  come  out  of  the  “  idea,”  but  the  writer 
adds — 

“  Ideas,  not  concreted,  not  instituted,  are  not  potencies,  are 
not  active,  but  are  really  to  us  as  if  they  were  not.  The  ideal 
must  become  actual  before  it  can  be  operative.  If  Christianity 
had  come  into  the  world  as  an  idea,  it  would  have  left  the 
world  as  it  found  it.  Moreover,  if  you  assume  it  to  have 
come  as  an  idea,  and  to  have  been  developed  only  by  the 
action  of  the  human  mind  on  it,  the  institutions  with  which 
it  is  subsequently  clothed,  the  authorities  established  in  its 
name,  the  dogmas  imposed,  the  precepts  enjoined,  and  the 
rites  prescribed,  are  all  really  the  products  of  the  human 
mind ;  and  instead  of  governing  the  mind,  may  be  governed, 
modified,  enlarged,  or  contracted  by  it  at  its  pleasure.  The 
Church  would  be  divine  only  in  the  sense  philosophy  or  civil 
government  is  divine.” — Ibid.  p.  356. 

We  do  not  see  how  Mr.  Newman  can  escape  this 
reasoning,  so  far  as  the  point  for  which  we  have  quoted 
it  is  concerned.  He  educes  all  Christianity  whatever 
out  of  an  “  idea.”  Then  how  can  that  idea  become  ever 
more  than  an  idea  ?  It  may  expand  indefinitely,  but  it 


Theory  of  Development.  225 

must  expand  as  an  idea.  It  was  that  to  begin  with,  and 
that  it  must  continue.  Whenever  it  becomes  an  “  institu¬ 
tion/’  something  arises  quite  additional  to  the  idea  and 
the  philosophical  simplicity  of  the  theory  gives  way.  It 
may  be  said  that  an  idea  can  clothe  itself  with  such  an 
institutional  body  in  course  of  time  ;  but  an  idea  can  do 
no  such  a  thin 2.  What  is  wanted  is  an  external  institution 
or  society,  membership  of  which  is  necessary  on  its  own 
account ;  and  not  merely  as  expressing  agreement  in  cer¬ 
tain  ideas.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to  think  with  the 
Church  :  he  must  be  in  it.  An  idea  cannot  develop  into 
an  institution  such  as  this ; — into  a  body  of  which 
membership  is,  as  membership,  sacramental.  It  may  form 
an  association  certainly,  such  as  the  Platonic  philosophy 
did ;  the  virtue  of  belonging  to  which  was  no  more  than 
that  of  agreement  in  the  philosophy.  But  this  would  be 
a  school  and  not  a  Church.  As  soon  as  ever  the  principle 
of  a  Church  comes  in,  and  there  is  a  body  which  it  is 
necessary  to  belong  to,  as  such,  there  is  something  which 
the  “  idea  ”  does  not  give  us.  The  ideal  exordium  which 
Mr.  Newman  assigns  to  Christianity  must,  unless  added 
to  from  without,  make  Christianity  continue  to  all  time  a 
philosophy  and  not  a  Church.  This  is  what  the  German 
Rationalist  educes  from  it;  and  it  is  the  fair  legitimate  issue 
of  it.  But  Mr.  Newman  brings  it  to  another  issue,  and 
contrives  to  incorporate  with  it,  as  he  works  it  up,  the 
adventitious  principle  of  a  Church. 

What  we  say  then  is,  that  Mr.  Newman  has  no  con¬ 
sistent  theory  whatever.  He  professes  a  theory,  but 
admits,  as  circumstances  require,  into  it,  things  which 
contradict  it,  and  things  which  it  does  not  account  for. 
He  has  a  theory  on  paper,  and  none  in  fact  :  he  begins 
with  philosophical  simplicity,  and  ends  in  arbitrary 
mixture.  His  theory  is  an  inclusive  one  simply,  and  not 

p 


226 


Theory  of  Development. 


an  explanatory  one  ;  embracing  a  great  number  of  hetero¬ 
geneous  facts  within  one  pale,  but  leaving  them  as  far  as 
ever  from  making  one  whole.  We  expected  on  opening 
this  Essay  to  find  Mr.  Newman's  theory  for  Roman  facts, 
but  we  find  nothing  of  the  kind.  What  he  does  is  to 
assert  the  old  ultra-liberal  theory  of  Christianity,  and  to 
join  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  but  he  does  not  show — what  it 
was  the  object  of  his  Essay  to  show — the  connection  of 
the  two, — the  accordance  of  his  theory  with  his  act.  And 
after  professing  to  give  us  an  hypothesis  which  accounts 
for  and  fits  on  to  the  facts  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  he 
ends  with  having  an  hypothesis  indeed,  and  having  facts, 
but  having  his  hypothesis  and  his  facts  in  separation. 


(Ftrinbiirgf)  Slnibcrsttu  Press: 

THOMAS  AND  ARCHIBALD  CONSTABLE,  PRINTERS'  TO  HER  MAJESTY. 


/ 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


